k you cut the bands, but I feel
pretty sure you know who did."

The man's jaw dropped, and he looked quite paralysed for a moment or
two. Then half recovering himself he plunged his tongs into the fire,
pulled out a sputtering white piece of glowing steel, gave it his
regular whirl through the air like a firework, and, instead of banging
it on to the anvil, plunged it with a fierce toss into the iron
water-trough, and quenched it.

"Why, Pannell!" I cried, "what made you do that?"

He scratched his head with the hand that held the hammer, and stared at
me for a few moments, and then down at the black steel that he had taken
dripping from the trough.

"Dunno," he said hoarsely, "dunno, lad."

"I do," I said to myself as I set down the kitten and went back to join
my uncles, who were in consultation in the office.

They stopped short as I entered, and Uncle Bob turned to me. "Well,
Philosopher Cob," he said, "what do you say? Who did this cowardly
act--was it someone in the neighbourhood, or one of our own men?"

"Yes, who was it?" said Uncle Dick.

"We are all divided in our opinions," said Uncle Jack.

"One of our own men," I said; "and Pannell the smith knows who it was."

"And will he tell?"

"No. I think the men are like schoolboys in that. No one would speak
for fear of being thought a sneak."

"Yes," said Uncle Dick, "and not only that; in these trades-unions the
men are all bound together, as it were, and the one who betrayed the
others' secrets would be in peril of his life."

"How are we to find out who is the scoundrel?" I said.

Uncle Dick shook his head, and did what he always found to be the most
satisfactory thing in these cases, set to work as hard as he could, and
Uncles Jack and Bob followed his example.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

ONLY A GLASS OF WATER.

The keeping watch of a night had now grown into a regular business
habit, and though we discovered nothing, the feeling was always upon us
that if we relaxed our watchfulness for a few hours something would
happen.

The paper stuck on the door was not forgotten by my uncles, but the men
went on just as usual, and the workshops were as busy as ever, and after
a good deal of drawing and experimenting Uncle Dick or Uncle Jack kept
producing designs for knives or tools to be worked up out of the new
steel.

"But," said I one day, "I don't see that this reaping-hook will be any
better than the old-fashioned one."

"The steel is