, for he said to me last night that he had twice asked for the
money, and was going this morning for the third time."

"Did you get it, Hardy?" some one asked, and Master Baker replied,
angrily:

"I did not; but the next time I demand it he will pay, for I shall
treat him with no more ceremony than I would one of the pirates."

"Be careful you don't feel the flat of his sword across your back, my
old barber."

"He dares not strike me, for he knows how much influence I have in
this town."

"And how much have you? When did you become of great public
importance?"

"When I showed what should be done to reformers like Hendricks."

"And are you the one who is responsible for that lesson?"

"But for me it might never have been given, for I pointed out the man
when it was not believed he was in the city."

"We are wasting our time," Amos cried, impatiently, raising his voice
above the uproar, for now many had begun to deride Hardy's
pretensions. "Let him explain how he knows that Master Theophilus
Lillie has declared he will sell British goods."

The barber's apprentice was prompt to make reply, for the taunts of
his comrades were not at all to his liking.

"While waiting in the guard-room at the Custom House, I heard the
'bloody backs' talking among themselves about the spirit which
Theophilus was showing in declaring he would conduct his business to
please himself. There was among the soldiers one who had heard him
announce his decision to no less a person than Master Samuel Adams;
but in order to make more certain of the truth, I went to the shop as
if I had been sent by Master Piemont, and asked for tea. It was
Theophilus Lillie himself who told me he had it. Do you want stronger
proof than that?"

Although Hardy Baker was not noted for strict loyalty to the truth,
there was no one among the party who doubted his statement, and
immediately the question arose as to what should be done to bring the
offending shopkeeper to a full realisation of the enormity of his
offence.

While the bolder spirits were discussing among themselves as to
whether the general public would look with favour upon their treating
the merchant as they had the informer, and the more timid ones were
arguing that their elders might not countenance an act of violence
against a merchant occupying such a prominent position in the
mercantile world as did Master Theophilus Lillie, James Gray, a lad
small of stature but fertile in expedients,