{"id":"01KG6G85XN3VWGGDNBKF92ABBP","cid":"bafkreiatqhkryvp5fymayrrx7mkgr325dqgooch7ua4ettww6bjlzysgpi","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7894,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.153Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 5","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":7805,"text":"caught up some congealed snow and began rubbing both my cheeks.\r\n\r\n‘Two white spots like the whites of your eyes,’ he said; ‘man, your\r\ncheeks are frozen.’\r\n\r\n‘That may well be,’ muttered I; ‘’tis some wonder the frost of the\r\nDevil’s Dungeon strikes in no deeper. Rub away.’\r\n\r\nSoon a horrible, tearing pain caught at my reviving cheeks. Two gaunt\r\nblood-hounds, one on each side, seemed mumbling them. I seemed Actaeon.\r\n\r\nPresently, when all was over, I re-entered the factory, made known my\r\nbusiness, concluded it satisfactorily, and then begged to be conducted\r\nthroughout the place to view it.\r\n\r\n‘Cupid is the boy for that,’ said the dark-complexioned man. ‘Cupid!’\r\nand by this odd fancy-name calling a dimpled, red-cheeked,\r\nspirited-looking, forward little fellow, who was rather impudently, I\r\nthought, gliding about among the passive-looking girls--like a gold-fish\r\nthrough hueless waves--yet doing nothing in particular that I could see,\r\nthe man bade him lead the stranger through the edifice.\r\n\r\n‘Come first and see the water-wheel,’ said this lively lad, with the air\r\nof boyishly-brisk importance.\r\n\r\nQuitting the folding-room, we crossed some damp, cold boards, and stood\r\nbeneath a great wet shed, incessantly showering with foam, like the\r\ngreen barnacled bow of some East Indiaman in a gale. Round and round\r\nhere went the enormous revolutions of the dark colossal water-wheel,\r\ngrim with its one immutable purpose.\r\n\r\n‘This sets our whole machinery a-going, sir; in every part of all these\r\nbuildings; where the girls work and all.’\r\n\r\nI looked, and saw that the turbid waters of Blood River had not changed\r\ntheir hue by coming under the use of man.\r\n\r\n‘You make only blank paper; no printing of any sort, I suppose? All\r\nblank paper, don’t you?’\r\n\r\n‘Certainly; what else should a paper-factory make?’\r\n\r\nThe lad here looked at me as if suspicious of my common-sense.\r\n\r\n‘Oh, to be sure!’ said I, confused and stammering; ‘it only struck me as\r\nso strange that red waters should turn out pale chee--paper, I mean.’\r\n\r\nHe took me up a wet and rickety stair to a great light room, furnished\r\nwith no visible thing but rude, manger-like receptacles running all\r\nround its sides; and up to these mangers, like so many mares haltered to\r\nthe rack, stood rows of girls. Before each was vertically thrust up a\r\nlong, glittering scythe, immovably fixed at bottom to the manger-edge.\r\nThe curve of the scythe, and its having no snath to it, made it look\r\nexactly like a sword. To and fro, across the sharp edge, the girls\r\nforever dragged long strips of rags, washed white, picked from baskets\r\nat one side; thus ripping asunder every seam, and converting the tatters\r\nalmost into lint. The air swam with the fine, poisonous particles, which\r\nfrom all sides darted, subtilely, as motes in sunbeams, into the lungs.\r\n\r\n‘This is the rag-room,’ coughed the boy.\r\n\r\n‘You find it rather stifling here,’ coughed I, in answer; ‘but the girls\r\ndon’t cough.’\r\n\r\n‘Oh, they are used to it.’\r\n\r\n‘Where do you get such hosts of rags?’ picking up a handful from a\r\nbasket.\r\n\r\n‘Some from the country round about; some from far over sea--Leghorn and\r\nLondon.’\r\n\r\n‘’Tis not unlikely, then,’ murmured I, ‘that among these heaps of rags\r\nthere may be some old shirts, gathered from the dormitories of the\r\nParadise of Bachelors. But the buttons are all dropped off. Pray, my\r\nlad, do you ever find any bachelor’s buttons hereabouts?’\r\n\r\n‘None grow in this part of the country. The Devil’s Dungeon is no place\r\nfor flowers.’\r\n\r\n‘Oh! you mean the _flowers_ so called--the Bachelor’s Buttons?’\r\n\r\n‘And was not that what you asked about? Or did you mean the gold\r\nbosom-buttons of our boss, Old Bach, as our whispering girls all call\r\nhim?’\r\n\r\n‘The man, then, I saw below is a bachelor, is he?’\r\n\r\n‘Oh yes, he’s a Bach.’\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 5"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6G6QRMJ08SP4KE07FET8A2","peer_type":"article","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6G85XFGJHSNA7DG2PTEXDF","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6G86FTQSJ7HX556EDBY766","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:17.973Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:48:29.368Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}