“Patent it?”

“No; hide it; lock it up in your own breast, and try and forget it.  Your life won’t be worth a week’s purchase, if you set up that machine in Hillsborough.”

“Hillsborough is not all the world.  I can take it to some free country—­America or—­Russia; there’s a fortune in it.  Stop; suppose I was to patent it at home and abroad, and then work it in the United States and the Canadas.  That would force the invention upon this country, by degrees.”

“Yes, and then, if you sell the English patent and insure the purchaser’s life, you may turn a few thousands, and keep a whole skin yourself.”

Little assured Bayne he had no intention of running his head against the Saw-grinders’ Union.  “We are very comfortable as it is, and I value my life more than I used to do.”

“I think I know why,” said Dr. Amboyne.  “But, whatever you do, patent your invention.  Patent them all.”

Henry promised he would; but soon forgot his promise, and, having tasted blood, so to speak, was soon deep in a far more intricate puzzle, viz., how to grind large circular saws by machinery.  This problem, and his steel railway clip, which was to displace the present system of fastening down the rails, absorbed him so, that he became abstracted in the very streets, and did not see his friends when they passed.

One day, when he was deeply engaged in his studio, Bayne tapped at the door, and asked to speak to him.

“Well, what is it?” said the inventor, rather peevishly.

“Oh, nothing,” said Bayne, with a bitter air of mock resignation.  “Only a cloud on the peaceful horizon; that is all.  A letter from Mary Anne.”

“Sir,—­Four of your saws are behindhand with their contributions, and, being deaf to remonstrance, I am obliged to apply to you, to use your influence.

“Mary Anne.”

“Well,” said Henry, “Mary Anne is in the right.  Confound their dishonesty:  they take the immense advantages the Saw-grinders’ Union gives them, yet they won’t pay the weekly contribution, without which the Union can’t exist.  Go and find out who they are, and blow them up.”

“What! me disturb the balmy?”

“Bother the balmy!  I can’t be worried with such trifles.  I’m inventing.”

“But, Mr. Little, would not the best way be for you just to stop it quietly and peaceably out of their pay, and send it to Grotait?”

Little, after a moment’s reflection, said he had no legal right to do that.  Besides, it was not his business to work the Saw-grinders’ Union for Grotait.  “Who is this Mary Anne?”

“The saw-grinders, to be sure.”

“What, all of them?  Poor Mary Anne!”

He then inquired how he was to write back to her.

“Oh, write under cover to Grotait.  He is Mary Anne, to all intents and purposes.”

“Well, write the jade a curt note, in both our names, and say we disapprove the conduct of the defaulters, and will signify our disapproval to them; but that is all we can do.”