He looked at the machine. The wheel was spinning slowly. The beautiful spokes were playing, plainly to be seen. Grot nodded to his beautiful machine.
“They will not trouble us long,” thought he. He waited for a signal from the New Tower of Babel. For a word from Joh Fredersen. The word did not come.
“He knows,” thought Grot, “that he can rely on me....”
The door quaked like a giant drum. The mob hurled itself, a living battering ram, against it.
“There are rather a lot of them, it seems to me,” thought Grot. He looked at the door, it trembled, but it held. And it looked as though it would still hold for a long time.
Grot nodded to himself in deep contentment. He would have loved to light his pipe, if only smoking had not been forbidden here. He heard the yelling of the mob, and rebound upon rebound against the singing door with a feeling of smug fierceness. He loved the door. It was his ally. He turned around and looked at his machine. He nodded at it affectionately: “We two—eh?... What do you say to that boozy lot of fatheads, machine?”
The storm before the door wound itself up into a typhoon. It was the hackling fury born of long resistance.
“Open the door,—!!” hackled the fury. “Open the door, you damned scoundrel—!!”
“Wouldn’t that just suit you!” thought Grot. How well the door was holding! His gallant door!
What were those drunken apes out there singing about?