being tight as a drum, its contents
had come to little harm with their sudden baptism. At last, our dozen
silk trunks--holding a treasure of thirty thousand dollars and whereon
we looked to clear a heavy profit--were safe in the Reade Street loft;
and my hasty heart, which had been beating at double speed since that
almost fatal interference, slowed to normal count.

One might now suppose that our woes were at an end, all danger over,
and nothing to do but dispose of our shimmering cargo to best
advantage. Harris and I were of that spirit-lifting view; we began on
the very next day to feel about for customers.

Harris, whose former smuggling exploits had dealt solely with gems,
knew as little of silk as did I. Had either been expert we might have
foreseen a coming peril into whose arms we in our blindness all but
walked. No, my children, our troubles were not yet done. We had
escaped the engulfing suck of Charybdis, only to be darted upon by
those six grim mouths of her sister monster, Scylla, over the way.

Well do I recall that morning. I had seen but two possible purchasers
of silks when Harris overtook me. His eye shone with alarm. Lorns had
run him down with the news--however he himself discovered it, I never
knew--that another peril was yawning. Harris hurried me to our Reade
Street lair and gave particulars.

"It seems," said Harris, quite out of breath with the speed we'd made
in hunting cover, "that A.T. Stewart is for America the sole agent of
these particular brands of silk which we've brought in. Some one to
whom we've offered them has notified the Stewart company. At this
moment and as we sit here, the detectives belonging to Stewart, and
for all I may guess, the whole Central Office as well, are on our
track. They want to discover who has these silks; and how they came
in, since the customs records show no such importations. And there's a
dark characteristic to these silks. Each bolt has its peculiar,
individual selvage. Each, with a sample of its selvage, is registered
at the home looms. Could anyone get a snip of a selvage he could
return with it to Lyons, learn from the manufacturers' book just when
it was woven, when sold, and to whom. I can tell you one thing,"
observed Harris, as he concluded his story, "we're in a bad corner."

How the cold drops spangled my brows! I began to wish with much heart
that I'd never met Harris; nor heard, that Trinity churchyard day, of
Cornbury and his devious smu