Messrs. Bolt and Little put their heads together, and played a prudent game. They kept the works going for a month, without doing anything novel, except what tended to the health and comfort of their workmen.
But, meantime, they cleared out two adjacent rooms: one was called the studio, the other the experiment-room.
In due course they hired a couple of single men from Birmingham to work the machine under lock and key.
Little with his own hands, affected an aperture in the party-wall, and thus conveyed long saws from his studio to the machine, and received them back ground.
Then men were lodged three miles off, were always kept at work half an hour later than the others, and received six pounds per week apiece, on pain of instant dismissal should they breathe a syllable.
They did the work of twenty-four men; so even at that high rate of wages, the profit was surprising. It actually went beyond the inventor's calculation, and he saw himself at last on the road to rapid fortune, and, above all, to Grace Carden.
This success excited Bolt's cupidity, and he refused to contract the operation any longer.
Then the partners had a quarrel, and nearly dissolved. However, it ended in Little dismissing his Birmingham hands and locking up his "experiment-room," and in Bolt openly devoting another room to the machines: two long, two circular.
These machines coined money, and Bolt chuckled and laughed at his partner's apprehensions for the space of twenty-one days.
On the twenty-second day, the Saw-grinders' Union, which had been stupefied at first, but had now realized the situation, sent Messrs.
Bolt and Little a letter, civil and even humble; it spoke of the new invention as one that, if adopted, would destroy their handicraft, and starve the craftsmen and their families, and expressed an earnest hope that a firm which had shown so much regard for the health and comfort of the workmen would not persist in a fatal course, on which they had entered innocently and for want of practical advice.
The partners read this note differently. Bolt saw timidity in it.
Little saw a conviction, and a quiet resolution, that foreboded a stern contest.
No reply was sent, and the machines went on coining.
Then came a warning to Little, not violent, but short, and rather grim. Little took it to Bolt, and he treated it with contempt.
Two days afterward the wheel-bands vanished, and the obnoxious machines stood still.
Little was for going to Grotait, to try and come to terms. Bolt declined. He bought new bands, and next day the machines went on again.
This pertinacity soon elicited a curious epistle:
"MESSRS. BOLT AND LITTLE,--When the blood is in an impure state, brimstone and treacle is applied as a mild purgative; our taking the bands was the mild remedy; but, should the seat of disease not be reached, we shall take away the treacle, and add to the brimstone a necessary quantity of saltpetre and charcoal.
"TANTIA TOPEE."
On receipt of this, Little, who had tasted the last-mentioned drugs, showed such undisguised anxiety that Bolt sent for Ransome. He came directly, and was closeted with the firm. Bolt handed him the letters, told him the case, and begged leave to put him a question.
"Is the police worth any thing, or nothing, in this here town?"
"It is worth something, I hope, gentlemen."
"How much, I wonder? Of all the bands that have been stolen, and all the people that have been blown up, and scorched and vitrioled, and shot at, and shot, by Union men, did ever you and your bobbies nail a single malefactor?"
Now Mr. Ransome was a very tall man, with a handsome, dignified head, a long black beard, and pleasant, dignified manners. When short, round, vulgar Mr. Bolt addressed him thus, it really was like a terrier snapping at a Newfoundland dog. Little felt ashamed, and said Mr. Ransome had been only a few months in office in the place.
"Thank you, Mr. Little," said the chief constable. "Mr Bolt, I'll ask you a favor. Meet me at a certain place this evening, and let me reply to your question then and there."
This singular proposal excited some curiosity, and the partners accepted the rendezvous. Ransome came to the minute, and took the partners into the most squalid part of this foul city. At the corner of a narrow street he stepped and gave a low whistle. A policeman in plain clothes came to him directly.
"They are both in the 'Spotted Dog,' sir, with half a dozen more."
"Follow me, and guard the door. Will you come, too, gentlemen?"
The "Spotted Dog" was a low public, with one large room and a sanded floor. Mr. Ransome walked in and left the door open, so that his three companions heard and saw all that passed.
"Holland and Cheetham, you are wanted."
"What for?"
"Wilde's affair. He has come to himself, and given us your names."
On this the two men started up and were making for the door.
Ransome whipped before it. "That won't do."
Then there was a loud clatter of rising feet, oaths, threats, and even a knife or two drawn; and, in the midst of it all, the ominous click of a pistol, and then dead silence; for it was Ransome who had produced that weapon. "Come, no nonsense," said he. "Door's guarded, street's guarded, and I'm not to be trifled with."
He then handed his pistol to the officer outside with an order, and, stepping back suddenly, collared Messrs. Holland and Cheetham with one movement, and, with a powerful rush, carried them out of the house in his clutches. Meantime the policeman had whistled, there was a conflux of bobbies, and the culprits were handcuffed and marched off to the Town Hall.
"Five years' penal servitude for that little lot," said Ransome.
"And now, Mr. Bolt, I have answered your question to the best of my ability."
"You have answered it like a man. Will you do as much for us?"
"I'll do my best. Let me examine the place now that none of them are about."