here worth saving."

The young man took the papers, and Mr. Penhallow sat down again at the
table with Mr. Byles Gridley.

This last-named gentleman felt just then a strong impulse to observe
the operations of Murray Bradshaw. He could not have given any very good
reason for it, any more than any of us can for half of what we do.

"I should like to examine that conveyance we were speaking of once
more," said he. "Please to look at this one in the mean time, will you,
Mr. Penhallow?"

Master Gridley held the document up before him. He did not seem to find
it quite legible, and adjusted his spectacles carefully, until they were
just as he wanted them. When he had got them to suit himself, sitting
there with his back to Murray Bradshaw, he could see him and all his
movements, the desk at which he was standing, and the books in the
shelves before him,--all this time appearing as if he were intent upon
his own reading.

The young man began in a rather indifferent way to look over the papers.
He loosened the band round them, and took them up one by one, gave a
careless glance at them, and laid them together to tie up again when
he had gone through them. Master Gridley saw all this process, thinking
what a fool he was all the time to be watching such a simple proceeding.
Presently he noticed a more sudden movement: the young man had found
something which arrested his attention, and turned his head to see if
he was observed. The senior partner and his client were both apparently
deep in their own affairs. In his hand Mr. Bradshaw held a paper folded
like the others, the back of which he read, holding it in such a way
that Master Gridley saw very distinctly three large spots of ink upon
it, and noticed their position. Murray Bradshaw took another hurried
glance at the two gentlemen, and then quickly opened the paper. He ran
it over with a flash of his eye, folded it again, and laid it by itself.
With another quick turn of his head, as if to see whether he were
observed or like to be, he reached his hand out and took a volume down
from the shelves. In this volume he shut the document, whatever it was,
which he had just taken out of the bundle, and placed the book in a very
silent and as it were stealthy way back in its place. He then gave a
look at each of the other papers, and said to his partner: "Old bills,
old leases, and insurance policies that have run out. Malachi seems to
have kept every scrap of paper that had a sig