This success excited Bolt's cupidity, and he refused to contract the operation any longer.

Then the partners had a quarrel, and nearly dissolved. However, it ended in Little dismissing his Birmingham hands and locking up his "experiment-room," and in Bolt openly devoting another room to the machines: two long, two circular.

These machines coined money, and Bolt chuckled and laughed at his partner's apprehensions for the space of twenty-one days.

On the twenty-second day, the Saw-grinders' Union, which had been stupefied at first, but had now realized the situation, sent Messrs. Bolt and Little a letter, civil and even humble; it spoke of the new invention as one that, if adopted, would destroy their handicraft, and starve the craftsmen and their families, and expressed an earnest hope that a firm which had shown so much regard for the health and comfort of the workmen would not persist in a fatal course, on which they had entered innocently and for want of practical advice.

The partners read this note differently. Bolt saw timidity in it. Little saw a conviction, and a quiet resolution, that foreboded a stern contest.

No reply was sent, and the machines went on coining.

Then came a warning to Little, not violent, but short, and rather grim. Little took it to Bolt, and he treated it with contempt.

Two days afterward the wheel-bands vanished, and the obnoxious machines stood still.