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Over the kitchen table, Halvorsen tried to probe. “Things pretty slow now?”

It would be hard to spoil Krehbeil’s day now. “People are always fools. They don’t know good hand work. Some day,” he said apocalyptically, “I laugh on the other side of my face when their foolish machine-buildings go falling down in a strong wind, all of them, all over the country. Even my boy—I used to beat him good, almost every day—he works a foolish concrete machine and his house should fall on his head like the rest.”

Halvorsen knew it was Krehbeil’s son who supported him by mail, and changed the subject. “You get some cabinet work?”

“Stupid women! What they call antiques—they don’t know Meissen, they don’t know Biedermeier. They bring me trash to repair sometimes. I make them pay; I swindle them good.”

“I wonder if things would be different if there were anything left over in Europe....”

“People will still be fools, Mr. Halvorsen,” said the carpenter positively. “Didn’t you say you were going to file those saws today?”