ves. When the servants had hectored a bit, the masters,
meek and mild, said they would give them sixpence out of the tenpence
sooner than they should feel dissatisfied. No; that wouldn't do. 'Well,
then,' says young Whitbread, 'are you agreed what will do?' 'Well,' said
one of the servants, 'we WILL ALLOW YOU TO MAKE THE BRICKS, if you give
us the tenpence.'"

"That was cool," said Henry. "To be sure, all brainless beggars try to
starve invention."

"Yes, my man: and you grumbled at my taking two-thirds. Labor is harder
on you inventors than capital is, you see. Well, I told 'em I wondered
at their cheek; but the old man stopped me, and spoke quite mild:
says he, 'You are too hard on us; we ought to gain a trifle by our own
improvement; if it had come from you, we should pay you for it;' and
he should stand by his offer of sixpence. So then the men told them it
would be the worse for them, and the old gentleman gave a bit of sigh,
and said he couldn't help that, he must live in the trade, or leave it,
he didn't much care which. Next morning they all struck work; and there
we are--stopped."

"Well," said Henry, "it is provoking; but you mustn't ask me to meddle.
It's your business."

"It is, and I'll show you I'm bad to beat." With this doughty resolve he
went off and drove the contractors; they drove the brickmakers, and the
brickmakers got fresh hands from a distance, and the promise of some
more.

Bolt rubbed his hands, and kept popping into the yard to see how they
got on. By this means he witnessed an incident familiar to brickmakers
in that district, but new to him. Suddenly loud cries of pain were
heard, and two of the brickmakers held up hands covered with blood, and
transfixed by needles. Some ruffian had filled the clay with needles.
The sufferers were both disabled, and one went to the hospital. Tempered
clay enough to make two hundred thousand bricks had been needled, and
had to be cleared away at a loss of time and material.

Bolt went and told Henry, and it only worried him; he could do nothing.
Bolt went and hired a watchman and a dog, at his own expense. The dog
was shot dead one dark night, and the watchman's box turned over and sat
upon, watchman included, while the confederates trampled fifty thousand
raw bricks into a shapeless mass.

The brickmasters, however, stood firm, and at last four of the old hands
returned to him, and accepted the sixpence profit due to the master's
invention. These