ds. Small matters fall to my share.
There is another safe, of which I hold the combination. Child's play,
but the other! It would make both of us independent, and yet leave
something for appearances. But it can't be worked. It stands in front of
a glass door from which the curtain is drawn every night. Every
passerby can look in. If it is opened it must be done in broad daylight
and by the person whom the old man trusts. By that means only would I
get my revenge, and revenge is what I want. He don't trust me, _me_ who
have been with him for seven years and----"

"Drop that, it isn't interesting. The facts are what I want. What kind
of safe is it?"

"The strangest you ever saw. I don't know who made it. There's nothing
on it to show. Nor is there a lock or combination. But it opens. You can
just see the outline of a door. Steel--fine steel, and not so very
large, but the contents----"

"We'll take its contents for granted. How does it stand? On a platform?"

"Yes, one foot from the floor. The platform runs all the way across the
room and holds other things; a table which nobody uses, a revolving
bookcase and a series of shelves, fitted with boxes containing old
receipts and such junk. Sometimes I go through these; but nothing ever
comes of it." He paused, as if the subject were distasteful.

"And the safe is opened?"

"Almost every week. I'm ashamed to tell you the old duffer's methods;
they're loony. But he isn't a lunatic. At any rate, they don't think so
in Wall Street."

"I'll make a guess at his name."

"Not yet. You'll have to swear----"

"Oh, we're both in it. Never mind the heroics. It's too good a thing to
peach on. Me and the manager! I like that. Take it easy till the job's
done, anyway. And now I'll take a fly at the name. It's----"

He had the grace to whisper.

CHAPTER IV

"_Stenographers must be counted_"

Young Fellows squirmed and turned a shade paler, if one could trust the
sickly violet ray that shot down from the once exquisitely colored
window high up over their heads.

"Hush!" he muttered; and the other grinned. Evidently the guess was a
correct one.

"No, he's no lunatic," the professional quietly declared. "But he has
queer ways. Which of his queers do you object to?"

"When his letters come, or more often his cablegrams, they are opened by
me and then put in plain view on a certain little bulletin board in the
main office. These are his orders. Any one who knows the c