How do you know whether that hundred and fifty marks is not an excellent investment of capital? Yes, a capital investment! Do you think that I would go boozing on champagne with those idiots, if I did not want to get something out of them? Here in Netzig you know nothing of how these things are done, this is the modern way. It is"—he hesitated for the right phrase—"in the grand manner!"
He went out, slamming the door. Frau Hessling followed him cautiously, and * when he had thrown himself down on the parlour sofa, she took his hand. "My dear son, I am with you," she said, looking at him as if she wanted to "pray from the heart." Diederich asked for a salted herring and then began to complain angrily of the difficulty of introducing the new spirit into Netzig. At least in his own home they should not thwart his efforts! "I have big things in store for you, but you must kindly leave all that to my superior judgment. There can be only one master, and of course he must be filled with a spirit of enterprise and have large views. Sötbier does not fit the part. Ill give the old man a little while more to potter about, then he gets the sack."
Softly Frau Hessling said she was sure that, for his mother's sake, her dear son would always do exactly what was best. Then Diederich went off to the office and wrote a letter to Buschli & Co., machinery manufacturers, of Eschweiler, in which he ordered a "New Patent Two-Cylinder Machine, fitted on the Maier system." He left the letter lying open on his desk and went out. When he returned Sötbier was standing at the desk, and it was evident that he was crying under his green eye-shade. His tears were falling on the letter. "You must have that copied," said Diederich coldly. Then Sötbier began:
"Master Diederich, our old cutting machine is not a Patent Two-Cylinder, but it belongs to the earliest days of the old master. He began with that machine, and with that machine the business grew up.…"
