ith the saw?" he asked with concern.
"Why should it not!" replied Victor sulkily and rose; the last mouthful
stuck in his throat. When he rode to the works beside him, Hoeflinger
noticed the change in his wheel and nodded approvingly: "You are right
to obey my wife's suggestion, Pratteler," said he, and added: "You
should also give up your extravagant speeding and pedaling for hours at
a stretch." Victor was silent. Later other workingmen joined them and
greeted Hoeflinger eagerly. But he was no more communicative than at
other times.

They entered the machine-shop. Before the gable-wall in the background
towered the idol. Its immense disk shone treacherously in the morning
light. Victor's heart was beating. The siren howled. The belting-gear
cracked and rolled up. The first shot rang out behind the halls.
Hoeflinger pressed down the lever and let the idol run. It rang the bell
and whistled; but there was a crunching noise. Hoeflinger listened and
hastily threw back the lever; the disk made a sweeping movement.
Silently he went up to the iron gallery. After a moment which seemed an
hour to Victor, he came down again. His face was grave; his eyes sought
Victor. "Did you do anything to the machine, Pratteler?" asked he with
troubled mien. "Is something wrong?" replied Victor much too loud and
angry at the ring of his voice. "It ran well until work was over last
night. After that I was not near it." Hoeflinger cleared his throat.
"Then it is sabotage," said he dejectedly. "But it is senseless and
murderous sabotage. If I had not heard that something was wrong, we two
should not be going about much longer." He went to the tool box and
again ascended the gallery.

Victor did not dare to follow him until he called. They both repaired
the damage done. Victor's hands were cold as ice in all the heat that
rose from the half-glowing iron blocks. At this moment he felt a
violent hatred of Hoeflinger and came near throwing him from the
gallery. Hoeflinger said only that the perpetrator would be expelled
from the organization as soon as discovered. That word sounded like a
judgment to Victor's ears. It gripped and shocked him in a depth of
consciousness he had not yet realized. He began to tremble. He stood
unknowingly under the jurisdiction of the power called social morality,
and his highflown democratic notions were already so strongly modified,
that he came near confessing his guilt to Hoeflinger. Yet the impulse
only intensif