Bayne called to Henry, and that brought him down, and several more, who winded something.

“Just look at these,” said Cheetham.

Little colored:  he saw the finger of the Unions at once, and bristled all over with caution and hostility.

“I see them, sir.  They are very fair specimens of cutlery; and there are only about twenty tools wanting to make a complete set; but there is one defect in them as carving-tools.”

“What is that?”

“They are useless.  You can’t carve wood with them.  None but a practical carver can design these tools, and then he must invent and make the steel molds first.  Try and sell them in London or Paris, you’ll soon find the difference.  Mr. Bayne, I wonder you should call me from my forge to examine ’prentice-work.”  And, with this, he walked off disdainfully, but not quite easy in his mind, for he had noticed a greedy twinkle in Cheetham’s eye.

The next day all the grinders in Mr. Cheetham’s employ, except the scissors-grinders, rose, all of a sudden, like a flock of partridges, and went out into the road.

“What is up now?” inquired Bayne.  The answer was, their secretaries had sent for them.

They buzzed in the road, for a few minutes, and then came back to work.

At night there was a great meeting at the “Cutlers’ Arms,” kept by Mr. Grotait.

At noon the next day, all the grinders aforesaid in Mr. Cheetham’s employ walked into the office, and left, each of them, a signed paper to this effect: 

“This is to give you notice that I will leave your service a week after the date thereof.” (Meaning “hereof,” I presume.)

Cheetham asked several of them what was up.  Some replied civilly, it was a trade matter.  Others suggested Mr. Cheetham knew as much about it as they did.

Not a single hot or uncivil word was spoken on either side.  The game had been played too often for that, and with results too various.

One or two even expressed a sort of dogged regret.  The grinder Reynolds, a very honest fellow, admitted, to Mr. Cheetham, that he thought it a sorry trick, for a hundred men to strike against one that had had a squeak for his life.  “But no matter what I think or what I say, I must do what the Union bids me, sir.”

“I know that, my poor fellow,” said Cheetham.  “I quarrel with none of you.  I fight you all.  The other masters, in this town, are mice, but I’m a man.”

This sentiment he repeated very often during the next six days.

The seventh came and the grinders never entered the works.

Cheetham looked grave.  However, he said to Bayne, “Go and find out where they are.  Do it cleverly now.  Don’t be noticed.”

Bayne soon ascertained they were all in the neighboring public-houses.

“I thought so,” said Cheetham.  “They will come in, before night.  They sha’n’t beat me, the vagabonds.  I’m a man, I’m not a mouse.”