his
pincers, shoved it into the coals, heated it, and, in half a minute,
forged two long steel nails. He then nailed this letter to his wall, and
wrote under it in chalk, "I offer L10 reward to any one who will show
me the coward who wrote this, but was afraid to sign it. The writing is
peculiar, and can easily be identified."

He also took the knife that had been so ostentatiously fixed in his
door, and carried it about him night and day, with a firm resolve to use
it in self-defense, if necessary.

And now the plot thickened: the decent workmen in Cheetham's works were
passive; they said nothing offensive, but had no longer the inclination,
even if they had the power, to interfere and restrain the lower workmen
from venting their envy and malice. Scarcely a day passed without growls
and scowls. But Little went his way haughtily, and affected not to see,
nor hear them.

However, one day, at dinner-time, he happened, unluckily, to be detained
by Bayne in the yard, when the men came out: and two or three of the
roughs took this opportunity and began on him at once, in the Dash
Dialect, of course; they knew no other.

A great burly forger, whose red matted hair was powdered with coal-dust,
and his face bloated with habitual intemperance, planted himself
insolently before Henry, and said, in a very loud voice, "How many more
trade meetings are we to have for one ---- knobstick?"

Henry replied, in a moment, "Is it my fault if your shilly-shallying
committees can't say yes or no to L15? You'd say yes to it, wouldn't
you, sooner than go to bed sober?"

This sally raised a loud laugh at the notorious drunkard's expense, and
checked the storm, as a laugh generally does.

But men were gathering round, and a workman who had heard the raised
voices, and divined the row, ran out of the works, with his apron full
of blades, and his heart full of mischief. It was a grinder of a certain
low type, peculiar to Hillsborough, but quite common there, where
grinders are often the grandchildren of grinders. This degenerate
face was more canine than human; sharp as a hatchet, and with forehead
villainously low; hardly any chin; and--most characteristic trait of
all--the eyes, pale in color, and tiny in size, appeared to have come
close together, to consult, and then to have run back into the very
skull, to get away from the sparks, which their owner, and his sire, and
his grandsire, had been eternally creating.

This greyhound of