"Then he has no love for him?"
"As much as a frog has for a red rag."
The mob, who had been in the best possible humour, now began to show signs of anger as the informer made himself conspicuous, and half-muttered words soon became loudly-spoken threats.
"The informer himself should hang from that pole!"
"Where are the feathers? He needs a new coat!"
"Down with the informer!"
Richardson turned toward the mob an instant, as if to defy it, and then, as the threats grew louder, entered the house.
"Whoever did that bit of work should be well paid for it," some one in the crowd said, sufficiently loud for Hardy to hear, and the latter looked triumphantly toward Chris Snyder. "I'll wager it came from under the Liberty Tree."
"You're right, my friend," the barber's apprentice said, in a loud tone, and in another moment he would have revealed that which should be kept a secret, had not the arrival of several British officers given him, in his opinion, an opportunity of yet further distinguishing himself.
"There is Lieutenant Draper," he said, sufficiently loud for all in the immediate vicinity to hear, "and this time he shall listen to what I have to say, unless he is willing to settle his account."