He went on to the wet-grinders, and he found their trade much healthier than dry-grinding:  yet there were drawbacks.  They suffered from the grit whenever a new stone was hung and raced.  They were also subject to a canker of the hands, and to colds, coughs, and inflammations, from perspiration checked by cold draughts and drenched floors.  These floors were often of mud, and so the wet stagnated and chilled their feet, while their bodies were very hot.  Excellent recipe for filling graves.

Here Bayne retired to his books, and Henry proceeded to the saw-grinders, and entered their rooms with no little interest, for they were an envied trade.  They had been for many years governed by Grotait, than whom no man in England saw clearer; though such men as Amboyne saw further.  Grotait, by a system of Machiavellian policy, ingeniously devised and carried out, nobly, basely, craftily, forcibly, benevolently, ruthlessly, whichever way best suited the particular occasion, had built a model Union; and still, with unremitting zeal and vigilance, contrived to keep numbers down and prices up—­which is the great Union problem.

The work was hard, but it was done in a position favorable to the lungs, and the men were healthy, brawny fellows; one or two were of remarkable stature.

Up to this moment Silly Billy had fully justified that title.  He had stuck to Henry’s side like a dog, but with no more interest in the inquiry than a calf, indeed, his wandering eye and vacant face had indicated that his scanty wits were wool-gathering miles from the place that contained his body.

But, as soon as he entered the saw-grinders’ room, his features lighted up, and his eye kindled.  He now took up a commanding position in the center, and appeared to be listening keenly.  And he had not listened many seconds before he cried out, “There’s the bad music! there! there!” And he pointed to a grindstone that was turning and doing its work exactly like the others.  “Oh, the bad music!” cried Billy.  “It is out of tune.  It says, ‘Murder! murder!  Out of tune!’”

Henry thought it his duty to inspect the grindstone so vigorously denounced, and, naturally enough, went in front of the grinder.  But Billy pulled him violently to the side.  “You musn’t stand there,” said he.  “That is the way they fly when they break, and kill the poor father, and then the mother lets down her hair, and the boy goes crazed.”

By this time the men were attracted by the Anomaly’s gestures and exclamations, and several left their work, and came round him.  “What is amiss, Billy? a flawed stone, eh? which is it?”

“Here! here!” said the boy.  “This is the wheel of death.  Kill it, break it, smash it, before it kills another father.”

Henry spoke to the grinder, and asked him if there was anything amiss with the stone.

The man seemed singularly uneasy at being spoken to:  however he made answer sullenly that he had seen better ones, and worse ones, and all.