“What, all of them? Poor Mary Anne!”
He then inquired how he was to write back to her.
“Oh, write under cover to Grotait. He is Mary Anne, to all intents and purposes.”
“Well, write the jade a curt note, in both our names, and say we disapprove the conduct of the defaulters, and will signify our disapproval to them; but that is all we can do.”
This letter was written, and Bayne made it as oleaginous as language permits; and there the matter rested apparently.
But, as usual, after the polite came the phonetic. Next week Henry got a letter thus worded:—
“MISTER LITL,—If them grinders of yores dosent send their money i shall com an' fech strings if the devil stans i' t' road.
“MOONRAKER.”
Mr. Little tossed this epistle contemptuously into the fire, and invented on.
Two days after that he came to the works, and found the saw grinders standing in a group, with their hands in their pockets.