I must now deal briefly¹ with a distinct vein² of incidents, that occurred between young Little's first becoming a master and the return of the Cardens from London.  
Little, as a master, acted up to the philanthropic theories he had put forth³ when a workman.
 
The wet-grinders in his employ submitted to his improved plates, his paved and drained floor, and cozy⁴ fires, without a murmur⁵ or a word of thanks. By degrees they even found out they were more comfortable than other persons in their condition, and congratulated themselves upon it.
 
The dry-grinders consented, some of them, to profit by his improved fans. Others would not take the trouble to put the fans in gear, and would rather go on inhaling⁶ metal-dust and stone-grit.
 
Henry reasoned, but in vain; remonstrated⁷, but with little success. Then he discharged a couple: they retired⁸ with mien⁹ of martyrs¹⁰; and their successors were admitted on a written agreement that left them no option. The fan triumphed.
 
The file-cutters were more troublesome; they clung to death and disease, like limpets to established rocks; they would not try any other bed than bare lead, and they would not wash at the taps Little had provided, and they would smuggle¹¹ in dinners and eat with poisoned hands.
 
Little reasoned, and remonstrated, but with such very trifling¹² success, that, at last, he had to put down the iron heel; he gave the file-cutters a printed card, with warning to leave on one side, and his reasons on the other.
 
In twenty-four hours he received a polite remonstrance¹³ from the secretary of the File-Cutters' union.
 
He replied that the men could remain, if they would sign an agreement to forego certain suicidal practices, and to pay fines in case of disobedience; said fines to be deducted¹⁴ from their earnings¹⁶.
 
Then the secretary suggested a conference at the “Cutlers' Arms.” Little assented¹⁷: and there was a hot argument. The father of all file-cutters objected to tyranny and innovation: Little maintained that Innovation was nearly always Improvement—the world being silly—and was manifestly improvement in the case under consideration. He said also he was merely doing what the union itself ought to do: protecting the life of union men who were too childish and wrong-headed to protect it themselves.
 
“We prefer a short life and a merry one, Mr. Little,” said the father of all file-cutters.
 
“A life of disease is not a merry one: slow poisoning is not a pleasant way of living, but a miserable¹⁸ way of dying. None but the healthy are happy. Many a Croesus would give half his fortune for a poor man's stomach; yet you want your cutlers to be sick men all their days, and not gain a shilling by it. Man alive, I am not trying to lower their wages.”
 
“Ay, but you are going the way to do it.”
 
“How do you make that out?”
 
“The trade is full already; and, if you force the men to live to threescore and ten, you will overcrowd it so, they will come to starvation wages.”
 
Little was staggered at this thunderbolt of logic¹⁹, and digested the matter in silence for a moment. Then he remembered something that had fallen from Dr. Amboyne; and he turned to Grotait. “What do you say to that, sir? would you grind Death's scythe²⁰ for him (at the list price) to thin the labor²¹ market?”
 
Grotait hesitated for once. In his heart he went with the file-cutter: but his understanding encumbered²³ him.
 
“Starvation,” said he, “is as miserable a death as poisoning. But why make a large question out of a small one, with rushing into generalities? I really think you might let Mr. Little settle this matter with the individual workmen. He has got a little factory, and a little crochet²⁴; he chooses to lengthen²⁵ the lives of six file-cutters. He says to them, 'My money is my own, and I'll give you so much of it, in return for so much work plus so much washing and other novelties.' The question is, does his pay cover the new labor of washing, etc., as well as the old?”
 
“Mr. Grotait, I pay the highest price that is going.”
 
“In that case, I think the unions are not bound to recognize the discussion. Mr. Little, I have some other reasons to lay before my good friend here, and I hope to convince him. Now, there's a little party of us going to dine to-morrow at 'Savage's Hotel,' up by the new reservoir; give us the pleasure of your company, will you? and, by that time, perhaps I may have smoothed this little matter for you.” Little thanked him, accepted the invitation, and left the pair of secretaries together.
 
When he was gone, Grotait represented that public opinion would go with Little on this question; and the outrages²⁶ he had sustained would be all ripped up by the Hillsborough Liberal, and the two topics combined in an ugly way; and all for what?—to thwart²⁷ a good-hearted young fellow in a philanthropical crotchet, which, after all, did him honor, and would never be imitated by any other master in Hillsborough. And so, for once, this Machiavel sided with Henry, not from the purest motives²⁸, yet, mind you, not without a certain mixture of right feeling and humanity.
 
On the Sunday Henry dined with him and his party, at “Savage's Hotel,” and the said dinner rather surprised Henry; the meats were simple, but of good quality, and the wines, which were all brought out by Grotait, were excellent. That Old Saw, who retailed²⁹ ale and spirits to his customers, would serve nothing less to his guests than champagne³⁰ and burgundy. And, if the cheer was generous, the host was admirable; he showed, at the head of his genial³¹ board, those qualities which, coupled with his fanaticism³², had made him the Doge of the Hillsborough trades. He was primed on every subject that could interest his guests, and knew something about nearly everything else. He kept the ball always going, but did not monologuize, except when he was appealed to as a judge, and then did it with a mellow³³ grace that no man can learn without Nature's aid. There is no society, however distinguished³⁴, in which Grotait would not have been accepted as a polished and admirable converser³⁵.
 
Add to this that he had an art, which was never quite common, but is now becoming rare, of making his guests feel his friends—for the time, at all events.
 
Young Little sat amazed, and drank in his words with delight, and could not realize that this genial philosopher was the person who had launched a band of ruffians at him. Yet, in his secret heart, he could not doubt it: and so he looked and listened with a marvelous mixture of feelings, on which one could easily write pages of analysis, very curious, and equally tedious.
 
They dined at three; and, at five, they got up, as agreed beforehand, and went to inspect the reservoir in course of construction. A more compendious³⁶ work of art was never projected: the contractors³⁷ had taken for their basis a mountain gorge³⁸, with a stream flowing through it down toward Hillsborough; all they had to do was to throw an embankment across the lower end of the gorge, and turn it to a mighty³⁹ basin open to receive the stream, and the drainage from four thousand acres of hill. From this lake a sixty-foot wear was to deal out the water-supply to the mill-owners below, and the surplus to the people of Hillsborough, distant about eight miles on an easy decline.
 
Now, as the reservoir must be full at starting, and would then be eighty feet deep in the center, and a mile long, and a quarter of a mile broad, on the average, an embankment of uncommon⁴⁰ strength was required to restrain so great a mass of water; and this was what the Hillsborough worthies⁴¹ were curious about. They strolled out to the works, and then tea was to come out after them, the weather being warm and soft. Close to the works they found a foreman of engineers smoking his pipe, and interrogated⁴² him. He showed them a rising wall, five hundred feet wide at the base, and told them it was to be ninety feet high, narrowing, gradually, to a summit twelve feet broad. As the whole embankment was to be twelve hundred feet long at the top, this gave some idea of the bulk of the materials to be used: those materials were clay, shale⁴³, mill-stone, and sandstone of looser texture⁴⁴. The engineer knew Grotait, and brought him a drawing of the mighty cone⁴⁵ to be erected⁴⁶. “Why, it will be a mountain!” said Little.
 
“Not far from that, sir: and yet you'll never see half the work. Why, we had an army of navvies on it last autumn, and laid a foundation sixty feet deep and these first courses are all bonded⁴⁷ in to the foundation, and bonded together, as you see. We are down to solid rock, and no water can get to undermine us. The puddle⁴⁸ wall is sixteen feet wide at starting, and diminishes to four feet at the top: so no water can creep in through our jacket.”
 
“But what are these apertures⁴⁹?” inquired Grotait.
 
“Oh, those are the waste-pipes. They pass through the embankment obliquely⁵⁰, to the wear-dam: they can be opened, or shut, by valves, and run off ten thousand cubic feet of water a minute.”
 
“But won't that prove a hole in your armor? Why, these pipes must be in twenty joints⁵¹, at least.”
 
“Say fifty-five; you'll be nearer the mark.”
 
“And suppose one or two of these fifty-five joints should leak? You'll have an everlasting⁵² solvent⁵³ in the heart of your pile, and you can't get at them, you know, to mend them.”
 
“Of course not; but they are double as thick as ever were used before; and have been severely⁵⁴ tested before laying 'em down: besides, don't you see each of them has got his great-coat on? eighteen inches of puddle all the way.”
 
“Ah,” said Grotait, “all the better. But it is astonishing what big embankments will sometimes burst if a leaky pipe runs through them. I don't think it is the water, altogether; the water seems to make air inside them, and that proves as bad for them as wind in a man's stomach.”
 
“Governor,” said the engineer, “don't you let bees swarm⁵⁵ in your bonnet⁵⁶. Ousely reservoir will last as long as them hills there.”
 
“No, doubt, lad, since thou's had a hand in making it.”
 
The laugh this dry rejoinder caused was interrupted by the waitress bringing out tea; and these Hillsborough worthies felt bound to chaff⁵⁷ her; but she, being Yorkshire too, gave them as good as they brought, and a trifle to spare.
 
Tea was followed by brandy-and-water and pipes: and these came out in such rapid succession, that when Grotait drove Little and two others home, his utterance⁵⁸ was thick, and his speech sententious.
 
Little found Bayne waiting for him, with the news that he had left Mr. Cheetham.
 
“How was that?”
 
“Oh, fell between two stools. Tried to smooth matters between Cheetham and the hands: but Cheetham, he wants a manager to side with him through thick and thin; and the men want one to side with them. He has sacked me, and the men are glad I'm going: and this comes of loving peace, when the world hates it.”
 
“And I am glad of it, for now you are my foreman. I know what you are worth, if those fools don't.”
 
“Are you in earnest, Little?”
 
“Why not?”
 
“I hear you have been dining with Grotait, and he always makes the liquor fly. Wait till tomorrow. Talk it over with Mrs. Little here. I'm afraid I'm not the right sort for a servant. Too fond of 'the balmy,' and averse⁵⁹ to the whole hog⁶⁰.” (The poor fellow was quite discouraged.)
 
“The very man I want to soothe⁶¹ me at odd times: they rile me so with their suicidal folly⁶². Now, look here, old fellow, if you don't come to me, I'll give you a good hiding.”
 
“Oh! well, sooner than you should break the peace—. Mrs. Little, I'd rather be with him at two guineas a week, than with any other master at three.”
 
When he had got this honest fellow to look after his interests, young Little gave more way than ever to his natural bent⁶³ for invention, and he was often locked up for twelve hours at a stretch, in a room he called his studio. Indeed, such was his ardor⁶⁴, that he sometimes left home after dinner, and came back to the works, and then the fitful fire of his forge might be seen, and the blows of his hammer heard, long after midnight.
 
Dr. Amboyne encouraged him in this, and was, indeed, the only person admitted to his said studio. There the Democritus of Hillsborough often sat and smoked his cigar, and watched the progress toward perfection of projected inventions great and small.
 
One day the doctor called and asked Bayne whether Henry was in his studio. Bayne said no; he thought he had seen him in the saw-grinders' hull⁶⁵. “And that struck me; for it is not often his lordship condescends⁶⁶ to go there now.”
 
“Let us see what 'his lordship' is at.”
 
They approached stealthily, and, looking through a window, saw the inventor standing²² with his arms folded, and his eyes bent on a grinder at his work: the man was pressing down a six-feet saw on a grindstone with all his might and Little was looking on, with a face compounded of pity, contempt, and lofty contemplation.
 
“That is the game now, sir,” whispered Bayne: “alwa............