His bigotry was, at this moment, disturbed by a visitation of that kind.

“I’m perplexed,” said he:  “I don’t often hesitate on a Trade question neither.  But the men we have done were always low-lived blackguards, who would have destroyed us, if we had not disabled them.  Now this Little is a decent young chap.  He struck at the root of our Trades, so long as he wrought openly.  But on the sly, and nobody knowing but ourselves, mightn’t it be as well to shut our eyes a bit?  My informant is not in trade.”

The other three took a more personal view of the matter.  Little was outwitting, and resisting them.  They saw nothing for it but to stop him, by hook or by crook.

While they sat debating his case in whispers, and with their heads so close you might have covered them all with a tea-tray, a clear musical voice was heard to speak to the barmaid, and, by her direction, in walked into the council-chamber—­Mr. Henry Little.

This visit greatly surprised Messrs. Parkin, Jobson, and Potter, and made them stare, and look at one another uneasily.  But it did not surprise Grotait so much, and it came about in the simplest way.  That morning, at about eleven o’clock, Dr. Amboyne had called on Mrs. Little, and had asked Henry, rather stiffly, whether he was quite forgetting Life, Labor and Capital.  Now the young man could not but feel that, for some time past, he had used the good doctor ill; had neglected and almost forgotten his benevolent hobby; so the doctor’s gentle reproach went to his heart, and he said, “Give me a day or two, sir, and I’ll show you how ashamed I am of my selfish behavior.”  True to his pledge, he collected all his notes together, and prepared a report, to be illustrated with drawings.  He then went to Cheetham’s, more as a matter of form than any thing, to see if the condemned grindstone had been changed.  To his infinite surprise he found it had not, and Bayne told him the reason.  Henry was angry, and went direct to Grotait about it.

But as soon as he saw Jobson, and Parkin, and Potter, he started, and they started.  “Oh!” said he, “I didn’t expect to find so much good company.  Why, here’s the whole quorum.”

“We will retire, sir, if you wish it.”

“Not at all.  My orders are to convert you all to Life, Labor, and Capital (Grotait pricked up his ears directly); and, if I succeed, the Devil will be the next to come round, no doubt.  Well, Mr. Grotait, Simmons is on that same grindstone you and I condemned.  And all for a matter of four shillings.  I find that, in your trade, the master provides the stone, but the grinder hangs and races it, which, in one sense, is time lost.  Well, Simmons declines the new stone, unless Cheetham will pay him by time for hanging and racing it; Cheetham refuses; and so, between them, that idiot works on a faulty stone.  Will you use your influence with the grinder?”

“Well, Mr. Little, now, between ourselves don’t you think it rather hard that the poor workman should have to hang and race the master’s grindstone for nothing?”