"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.