they laughed! They didn't mind my givin' 'em fits--all except one or
two. That was what I expected. The one or two was mad. They begun
raging towards me, but there I was asleep on the bench-stony blind,
and then they only spit fire a bit. Some one threw my coat over me.
I hadn't any cash in the pockets, not much--I knew better than that--and
I snored like a sow. Then it happened what I thought would happen. They
talked. And here it is. They're going to have a strike in the mills,
and you're to get a toss into the river. That's to be on Friday. But
the other thing--well, they all cleared away but two. They were the two
that wanted to have it out with me. They stayed behind. There was I
snoring like a locomotive, but my ears open all right.

"Well, they give the thing away. One of 'em had just come from Felix
Marchand and he was full of it. What was it? Why, the second night of
the strike your new bridge over the river was to be blown up.
Marchand was to give these two toughs three hundred dollars each for
doing it."

"Blown up with what?" Ingolby asked sharply.

"Dynamite."

"Where would they get it?"

"Some left from blasting below the mills."

"All right! Go on."

"There wasn't much more. Old Barbazon, the landlord, come in and they
quit talking about it; but they said enough to send 'em to gaol for ten