From where I stood I looked out upon the backs of a score of buildings; printing-offices, warehouses, and the like, and at the window of one of these buildings I saw a couple of men, one of whom I felt certain was some one I had seen before, but where, I could not tell. I was back and beside poor Hallett directly, giving both Mr Girtley and Tom a look which sent them to the window, to see that there was no doubt how the misfortune had occurred; but I was too much taken up with Hallett's condition to say more then. "Is he much hurt?" cried first one and then another. "Looks like a judgment on him," said the heavy, broad-faced man with whom I had had my short, verbal encounter. "Why?" said Tom Girtley sharply. "Inventing gimcrack things like that," said the fellow in a tone of contempt, "to try and take the bread out of honest men's mouths." "Good heavens! man, leave the room!" cried Mr Girtley in a rage. "Go and take off your clothes; they've been made by machinery! Go and grub up roots with your dirty fingers! don't dig them with a spade--it's a machine! Go and exist, and grovel like a toad or a slug, or any other noisome creature; you are not fit for the society of men!" The brute was about to reply, but there was such a shout of laughter at Mr Girtley's denunciation and its truthfulness, that he hurried out of the place, just as Hallett sat up and stared round. "No," he said, "not much hurt; I'm better now. A piece of iron struck me on the head. It is a mere nothing. Stunned me, I suppose." He rose as he spoke, and there was a silence no one cared to break, as he looked at the wreck of his machine. "Another failure, Mr Rowle," he said sadly; and he took the old man's hand, as if he were the one who needed all the sympathy. "I am very, very sorry--for your sake. I cannot say more now." "One word, Mr Hallett," said the great engineer. "Do you know that this is all through malice?" "Malice? No." "Some scoundrel has been here and thrust in this bar of iron. Gentlemen," he said, looking round, "this is an unfortunate affair; but I speak to you as leading members of the printing business, and I tell you that Mr Hallett's invention here means success, and a revolution in the trade,--This is a case of wanton destruction, the act of some contemptible scoundrel. You have seen the ruin here of something built up by immense labour, but I pledge you my word--my reputation--that before six months are past another and a better machine shall be running before you--perfect." There was a faint cheer, and quite a little crowd gathered round the wreck while Mr Girtley turned to speak to Hallett. "Thank you," said the latter, smiling; "you will excuse me now; I feel rather faint and giddy, and I will get off home." "I'll go with you, Hallett," I cried. "No, no: I shall be all right," he said, with a sad smile. "I'll take a cab at the corner on the strength of my success. Come to me after you leave."