Pelle the Conqueror by Martin Andersen Nexø (great novels to read .TXT) 📕

will declare a lockout for the whole trade⁠—what do you think of that? Old hats will be selling cheap!”

Pelle was silent, and withdrew; it was the only way in which he could succeed in keeping cool. He had said what had to be said, and he was no diplomat, to smile quietly with a devil lurking in the corners of his eyes.

Meyer obligingly accompanied him to the door. “Can I oblige you in any other way⁠—with work, for example? I could very well find room for a worker who will make children’s boots and shoes.”

When Pelle reached the street he drew a long breath. Poof! That was tough work; a little more insolence and he’d have given him one on the jaw! That would have been the natural answer to the fellow’s effrontery! Well, it was a fine test for his hot temper, and he had stood it all right! He could always be master of the situation if he held his tongue.

“Now suppose we do put an embargo on Meyer,” he thought, as he went down the street. “What then? Why, then he’ll hit back and declare a lockout. Could we hold out? Not very long, but the employers don’t know that⁠—and then their businesses would be ruined. But then they would introduce workers from abroad⁠—or, if that didn’t answer, they would get the work done elsewhere; or they would import whole cargoes of machinery, as they have already begun to do on a small scale.”

Pelle stood still in the middle of the street. Damn it all, this wouldn’t do! He must take care that he didn’t make a hash of the whole affair. If these foreign workers and machines were introduced, a whole host of men would in a moment be deprived of their living. But he wanted to have a go at Meyer; there must be some means of giving the bloodsucker a blow that he would feel in his purse!

Next morning he went as usual to Beck’s. Beck looked at him from over his spectacles. “I’ve nothing more to do with you, Pelle,” he said, in a low voice.

“What!” cried Pelle, startled. “But we’ve such a lot of work on hand, master!”

“Yes, but I can’t employ you any longer. I’m not doing this of my own free will; I have always been very well pleased with you; but that’s how it stands. There are so many things one has to take into consideration; a shoemaker can do nothing without leather, and one can’t very well do without credit with the leather merchants.”

He would not say anything further.

But Pelle had sufficiently grasped the situation. He was the president of the Shoemakers’ Union; Master Beck had been compelled to dismiss him, by the threat of stopping his source of supplies. Pelle was a marked man because he was at the head of the organization⁠—although the latter was now recognized. This was an offence against the right of combination. Still there was nothing to be done about the matter; one had the right to dismiss a man if one had no further need of him. Meyer was a cunning fellow!

For a time Pelle drifted about dejectedly. He was by no means inclined to go home to Ellen with this melancholy news; so he went to see various employers in order to ask them for work. But as soon as they heard who he was they found they had nothing for him to do. He saw that a black mark had been set against his name.

So he must confine himself to home work, and must try to hunt up more acquaintances of his acquaintances. And he must be ready day and night lest some small shoemaker who muddled along without assistance should suddenly have more to do than he could manage.

Ellen took things as they came, and did not complain. But she was mutely hostile to the cause of their troubles. Pelle received no help from her in his campaign; whatever he engaged in, he had to fight it out alone. This did not alter his plans, but it engendered a greater obstinacy in him. There was one side of his nature that Ellen’s character was unable to reach; well, she was only a woman, after all. One must be indulgent with her! He was kind to her, and in his thoughts he more and more set her on a level with little Lasse. In that way he avoided considering her opinion concerning serious matters⁠—and thereby felt more of a man.

Thanks to his small salary as president of his Union, they suffered no actual privation. Pelle did not like the idea of accepting this salary; he felt greatly inclined to refuse the few hundred kroner. There was not a drop of bureaucratic blood in his veins, and he did not feel that a man should receive payment for that which he accomplished for the general good. But now this money came in very conveniently; and he had other things to do than to make mountains out of molehills. He had given up the embargo; but he was always racking his brains for some way of getting at Meyer; it occupied him day and night.

One day his thoughts blundered upon Meyer’s own tactics. Although he was quite innocent, they had driven him away from his work. How would it be if he were to employ the same method and, quite secretly, take Meyer’s workmen away from him? Meyer was the evil spirit of the shoemaker’s craft. He sat there like a tyrant, thanks to his omnipotence, and oppressed the whole body of workers. It would not be so impossible to set a black mark against his name! And Pelle did not mean to be too particular as to the means.

He talked the matter over with his father-in-law, whose confidence in him was now restored. Stolpe, who was an old experienced tactician, advised him not to convoke any meeting on this occasion, but to settle the matter with each man face to