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Rh the man could step aside. Snorting with impatience, he watched the machine at work, the cylinders turning and the knife cutting, which separated the material into threads. Weren't the people who attended the machine grinning at him slyly, because he had been frightened by that dark fellow? "He is an impudent dog! He must be fired!" A bestial hate arose in Diederich, the hatred of his fair flesh for the thin dark man of another race, which he would have liked to regard as inferior and which looked sinister. Diederich made a sudden movement.

"The cylinder is not in the right position, the knives are working badly!" As the hands merely stared at him, he yelled: "where is the machinist?" When the man with the black beard came along, Diederich said: "look how this has been bungled. The cylinder is much too close to the knives and they are cutting everything to pieces. I will hold you responsible for the damage."

The man bent over the machine. "No harm done," he said quietly, and again Diederich wondered if a smile was not hidden by that black beard. The machinist gave him a surly mocking look, which Diederich could not stand. He stopped blustering and simply made a gesture with his arms. "I hold you responsible."

"What's wrong now?" asked Sötbier, who had heard the noise. Then he explained that the rags were not being cut too fine, that they were always done in this way. The men nodded their heads in approval and the machinist stood there indifferently. Diederich did not feel equal to a discussion about his competence in such matters, so he shouted: "In the future, you will kindly see that it is done differently!" and he turned away.

He reached the rag room, and he recovered his composure as he watched with an expert eye the women who were sorting the rags on the sieve plates of the long tables. One little 'dark-eyed woman was bold enough to smile at him from