Before Haldane could pass from the inner office two strangers, who had been standing quietly at the door, each dexterously seized one of his hands with such an iron grasp that, after a momentary struggle, he gave up, conscious of the hopelessness of resistance.
"If you will go quietly with us we will employ no force," said the man in uniform; "otherwise we must use these;" and Haldane shuddered as light steel manacles were produced. "These men are officers like myself, and you see that you stand no chance with three of us."
"Well, lead on, then," was the sullen answer. "I will go quietly if you don't use those, but if you do, I will not yield while there is a breath of life in me."
"A most desperate and hardened wretch!" ejaculated the reporter, sopping his streaming nose.
With a dark look and deep malediction upon his employer, Haldane was led away.
Mr. Arnot was in no gentle mood, for, while he had carried out his programme, the machinery of the legal process had not worked smoothly. Very disagreeable things had been said to him in the hearing of his clerks and others. "Of course, they are not true," thought the gentleman; "but his insolent words will go out in the accounts of the affair as surely as my own."
If Haldane had been utterly overwhelmed and broken down, and had shown only the cringing spirit of a detected and whipped cur, Mr. Arnot's complacency would have been perfect. But as it was, the affair had gone forward in a jarring, uncomfortable manner, which annoyed and irritated him as would a defective, creaking piece of mechanism in one of his factories. Opposition, friction of any kind, only made his imperious will more intolerant of disobedience or neglect; therefore he summoned Pat in a tone whose very accent foretold the doom of the "intelligent Irishman."
"Did I not order you to give no information to any one concerning what occurred last night?" he demanded in his sternest tone.
Pat hitched and wriggled, for giving up his forty dollars a month was like a surgical operation. He saw that his master was incensed, and in no mood for extenuation; so he pleaded-"Misther Arnot, won't ye plaze slape on it afore ye gives me me discharge. If ye'll only think a bit about them newspaper men, ye'll know it could not be helped a' tall. If they suspicion that a man has anything in him that they're wantin' to know, they the same as put a corkscrew intil him, and pull till somethin' comes, and thin they make up the rest. Faix, sur, I niver could o' got by 'em aloive wid me letther onless a little o' the news had gone intil their rav'nous maws."