"It just meeans this. Yo' look as if a square meeal 'ud do yo' all th' gooid i'th' warld, an' aw reckon yo've got to eit this bit o' papper afore yo' cum aat." Jack flung it at him and sat quietly down. "Yo' may ta' yo'r time, aw'm no ways pressed mi sen. If yo' feel it a bit dry aw'll find yo' a can o' watter to wesh it dahn wi'; but eit it yo' do afore yo' see dayleet agen." "But, Mr. Pinder!" "Mr. Pinder, indeed yo' gorm fooil. A'm nooan Mr. Pinder. Mr. Pinder's a gentleman. Aw'm nobbut his man. Nah, ger agate: Sooiner yo'r' at it, an' sooiner yo'll ha' done." And in the boiler-house Tom found the custodian of Co-op Mill and his prisoner. To Jack's indignation Tom quietly pocketed the petition and released the clerk with an apology and a solatium. CHAPTER XII TO say that the service of the bill in Chancery on Tom was like a bolt from the blue would be but feebly to describe the consternation with which he perused the portentous document, and in time realized its meaning and effect. Tom was absolutely unconscious that either in thought, word, or deed he had wronged any of his neighbours below stream. He had not, to his knowledge, turned more dye-water into the river, or taken more pure water from it than the reasonable working of his mill demanded, and had been afore-time accustomed by his predecessor. He had received no complaint from Mr. Tinker, no request for abatement of any nuisance he might unwittingly have committed, or infringement he might innocently have caused, Nehemiah Wimpenny in his zeal to do his client's behests, and in the animus he himself cherished against Tom, had even pretermitted the usual letter of courtesy preceding the firing of the first shot, the letter which in litigation is like the pourparlers of ambassadors preparatory to the formal declaration of war--an omission by the way, which Nehemiah had subsequent occasion to repent in sack-cloth and ashes. But for the present Nehemiah was jubilant and elate. Affidavits simply rained upon Tom. Photographers and surveyors swarmed about the banks of the Holme above and below Co-op Mill, and its waters were analysed and tested qualitatively and quantitatively as though the fate of empires depended on the issue. It was plain that Wimpenny meant to press the motion for an interim injunction, the effect of which would be to stop, if but temporarily, the work at Co-op Mill, and would of itself be as disastrous to its tenant as a final decree after full trial. Tom and Ben discussed the situation in all its bearings.