"How is it, Malay?" asked my comrades when I appeared among them.
"How is it, Hartwig?" asked the head-foreman, who was again standing before the unlucky machine, without a smile this time.
"How is it, George?" asked Klaus and Kurt, coming over from their shop.
"I will show you," I said. I went up to the machine and gave a sort of little lecture, in which I set forth the result of my night's work in a way, as I think, both clear and connected, for they all listened with the most eager attention; and their faces grew brighter and brighter as I proceeded, until, when my demonstration was finished, Kurt clapped his hands, Klaus looked around with inexpressible pride, the men nodded to each other with expressive looks, and head-foreman Roland, with a really sunny smile under the thatch, shook my hand as he said:
"Go ahead, my son, go ahead; we will give it to them."
"Malay, you must come to the manager," said the office-messenger, coming up.
My audience exchanged expressive looks.
"Go ahead, my son!" said Herr Roland; "give it to them!"
The Manager, Herr Berg, a worthy, modest man, but of no great breadth of views, was alone in his office, which adjoined the Technical Bureau.
"I have heard, Hartwig," he said, "that you think you have discovered the error in the new machine. Although this appears rather more than doubtful to me, still men in your place now and then hit upon things which others search after in vain for days. I worked up from the ranks myself, and know that. What do you believe to be the difficulty?"