“I'll give you a hundred to do it again, only more effectually.” He turned very pale when he had made this offer.
“Ah,” said Cole, “anybody could tell you was a gentleman.”
“You accept my offer, then?”
“Nay, I mean it is easy to see you don't know trades. I musn't meddle with Mr. Little now; he is right with the Trade.”
“What, not if I pay you five times as much? say ten times then; two hundred pounds.”
“Nay, we Union chaps are not malefactors. You can't buy us to injure an unoffending man. We have got our laws, and they are just ones, and, if a man will break them, after due warning, the order is given to 'do' him, and the men are named for the job, and get paid a trifle for their risk; and the risk is not much, the Trade stand by one another too true, and in so many ways. But if a man is right with the Trade, it is treason to harm him. No, I mustn't move a finger against Little.”
“You have set up a conscience!” said Coventry bitterly.
“You dropped yours, and I picked it up,” was the Yorkshireman's ready reply. He was nettled now.
At this moment the door was opened and shut very swiftly, and a whisper came in through the momentary aperture, “Mind your eye, Sam Cole.”
Coventry rushed to the door and looked out; there was nobody to be seen.