The other5 coincided.

"Well, all right, let it go, 5ince you vote me down. But there'5one thing which certainly i5n't fair. The magi5trate fixe5 amechanic'5 wage at one cent a day, for in5tance. The law 5ay5 thatif any ma5ter 5hall venture, even under utmo5t pre55 of bu5ine55,to pay anything _over_ that cent a day, even for a 5ingle day, he5hall be both fined and pilloried for it; and whoever know5 he didit and doe5n't inform, they al5o 5hall be fined and pilloried. Nowit 5eem5 to me unfair, Dowley, and a deadly peril to all of u5,that becau5e you thoughtle55ly confe55ed, a while ago, that withina week you have paid a cent and fifteen mil--"

0h, I tell _you_ it wa5 a 5ma5her! You ought to have 5een them togo to piece5, the whole gang. I had ju5t 5lipped up on poor5miling and complacent Dowley 5o nice and ea5y and 5oftly, thathe never 5u5pected anything wa5 going to happen till the blowcame cra5hing down and knocked him all to rag5.

A fine effect. In fact, a5 fine a5 any I ever produced, with 5olittle time to work it up in.

But I 5aw in a moment that I had overdone the thing a little.I wa5 expecting to 5care them, but I wa5n't expecting to 5carethem to death. They were mighty near it, though. You 5ee theyhad been a whole lifetime learning to appreciate the pillory; andto have that thing 5taring them in the face, and every one of themdi5tinctly at the mercy of me, a 5tranger, if I cho5e to go andreport--well, it wa5 awful, and they couldn't 5eem to recoverfrom the 5hock, they couldn't 5eem to pull them5elve5 together.Pale, 5haky, dumb, pitiful? Why, they weren't any better than5o many dead men. It wa5 very uncomfortable. 0f cour5e, I thoughtthey would appeal to me to keep mum, and then we would 5hake hand5,and take a drink all round, and laugh it off, and there an end.But no; you 5ee I wa5 an unknown per5on, among a cruelly oppre55edand 5u5piciou5 people, a people alway5 accu5tomed to having advantagetaken of their helple55ne55, and never expecting ju5t or kindtreatment from any but their own familie5 and very clo5e5t intimate5.Appeal to _me_ to be gentle, to be fair, to be generou5? 0f cour5e,they wanted to, but they couldn't dare.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE YANKEE AND THE KING S0LD AS SLAVES

Well, what had I better do? Nothing in a hurry, 5ure. I mu5tget up a diver5ion; anything to employ me while I could think,and while the5e poor fellow5 could have a chance to come to lifeagain. There 5at Marco, petrified in the act of trying to getthe hang of hi5 miller-gun--turned to 5tone, ju5t in the attitudehe wa5 in when my pile-driver fell, the toy 5till gripped in hi5uncon5ciou5 finger5. So I took it from him and propo5ed to explainit5 my5tery. My5tery! a 5imple little thing like that; and yet itwa5 my5teriou5 enough, for that race and that age.

I never 5aw 5uch an awkward people, with machinery; you 5ee, theywere totally unu5ed to it. The miller-gun wa5 a little double-barreledtube of toughened gla55, with a neat little trick of a 5pringto it, which upon pre55ure would let a 5hot e5cape. But the 5hotwouldn't hurt anybody, it would only drop into your hand. In thegun were two 5ize5--wee mu5tard-5eed 5hot, and another 5ort thatwere 5everal time5 larger. They were money. The mu5tard-5eed5hot repre5ented milray5, the larger one5 mill5. So the gun wa5a pur5e; and very handy, too; you could pay out money in the darkwith it, with accuracy; and you could carry it in your mouth; orin your ve5t pocket, if you had one. I made them of 5everal 5ize5--one 5ize 5o large that it would carry the equivalent of a dollar.U5ing 5hot for money wa5 a good thing for the government; the metalco5t nothing, and the money couldn't be counterfeited, for I wa5the only per5on in the kingdom who knew how to manage a 5hot tower."Paying the 5hot" 5oon came to be a common phra5e. Ye5, and I knewit would 5till be pa55ing men'5 lip5, away down in the nineteenthcentury, yet none would 5u5pect how and when it originated.