into the works when the saw-grinders have
left?"

Bayne hem'd and haw'd a little, but consented. He would remain behind
half an-hour to oblige Little.

Henry gave the Anomaly his dinner, and then inspected the file-cutters
in two great works. Here he found suicide reduced to a system. Whereof
anon.

Returning, to keep his appointment with Bayne he met a well-dressed man,
who stopped Billy, and accosted him kindly.

Henry strolled on.

He heard their voices behind him all the way, and the man stopped at
Cheetham's gate, which rather surprised him. "Has Billy told you what we
are at?" said he.

"Yes. But the very look of him was enough. I know Billy and his ways,
better than you do."

"Very likely. What, are you coming in with us?"

"If you have no objection."

The door was opened by Bayne in person. He started at the sight of the
companion his friend had picked up, and asked him, with marked civility,
if there was anything amiss. "Not that I know of," was the reply. "I
merely thought that my experience might be of some little service to you
in an inquiry of this kind."

"Not a doubt of it, sir," said Bayne, and led the way with his lantern,
for it was past sunset. On the road, the visitor asked if anybody had
marked the accused stone. Henry said he should know it again. "That is
right," said the other.

On entering the room, this personage took Billy by the arm, and held
him. "Let us have no false alarms," he said, and blindfolded the boy
with his handkerchief in a moment.

And now an examination commenced, which the time and the place rendered
curious and striking.

It was a long, lofty room; the back part mainly occupied by the drums
that were turned by the driving-power. The power was on the floor above,
and acted by means of huge bands that came down through holes in the
ceiling and turned the drums. From each of these drums came two leather
bands, each of which turned a pulley-wheel, and each pulley-wheel a
grindstone, to whose axle it was attached; but now the grindstones
rested in the troughs, and the great wheel-bands hung limp, and the
other bands lay along loose and serpentine. In the dim light of a single
lamp, it all looked like a gigantic polypus with its limbs extended
lazily, and its fingers holding semi-circular claws: for of the
grindstones less than half is visible.

Billy was a timid creature, and this blindfolding business rather scared
him: he had almost to be dragged within reac