{"id":"01KG6YH2EH7MVK7SMWMMY2YM1P","cid":"bafkreicb4vvatnihrqg6kkksz4vmv35d7qpla4fdlcooj2jxqn7bt4nytu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4052,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 5","source_file":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","start_line":3960,"text":"\"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 either side, seemed mumbling them. I seemed\r\nActaeon.\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.\r\n\"Cupid!\" and 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\r\nfish through hueless waves--yet doing nothing in particular that I\r\ncould see, the 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\r\nair of boyishly-brisk importance.\r\n\r\nQuitting the folding-room, we crossed some damp, cold boards, and\r\nstood beneath a great wet shed, incessantly showered with foam,\r\nlike the green barnacled bow of some East Indiaman in a gale. Round\r\nand round here went the enormous revolutions of the dark colossal\r\nwater-wheel, grim 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\r\nas so 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\r\nall round its sides; and up to these mangers, like so many mares\r\nhaltered to the rack stood rows of girls. Before each was vertically\r\nthrust up a long, glittering scythe, immovably fixed at bottom to\r\nthe manger-edge. The curve of the scythe, and its having no snath to\r\nit, made it look exactly like a sword. To and fro, across the sharp\r\nedge, the girls forever dragged long strips of rags, washed white,\r\npicked from baskets at one side; thus ripping asunder every seam, and\r\nconverting the tatters almost into lint. The air swam with the fine,\r\npoisonous particles, which from all sides darted, subtilely, as motes\r\nin 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\r\ngirls don'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\n\"The edges of those swords, they are turned outward from the girls, if\r\nI see right; but their rags and fingers fly so, I can not distinctly\r\nsee.\"\r\n\r\n\"Turned outward.\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 5"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGBGPB2V2V7FC8XKF7R8H","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH2EH2NQRG1083HT567N7","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YH2EHDQ5ZZ3ADSKJHBBSX","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:49.393Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.041Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}