At the factories he met with no better luck. It seemed to him that in those great buildings, turning out respectively such tremendous quantities of woolen, cotton, and linen stuffs, such world-renowned dyes and paints, such precious diamonds cut from the rough, such supplies of meal, of bricks, of glass and china--that in at least one of these, a strong-armed boy, able and eager to work, could find something to do. But no--nearly the same answer met him everywhere. No need of more hands just now. If he had called before Saint Nicholas's Day they might have given him a job as they were hurried then; but at present they had more boys than they needed. Hans wished they could see, just for a moment, his mother and Gretel. He did not know how the anxiety of both looked out from his eyes, and how, more than once, the gruffest denials were uttered with an uncomfortable consciousness that the lad ought not be turned away. Certain fathers, when they went home that night, spoke more kindly than usual to their youngsters, from memory of a frank, young face saddened at their words, and before morning one man actually resolved that he would instruct his head man Blankert to set the boy from Broek at something if he should come in again.