e
really is getting at the letter-book. Therefore we mustn't make it any
harder for the some one to get at the letter-book."

"Oh, very well," Mr. Wheatcroft assented, a little ungraciously, "have
it your own way. But I want you to understand now that I think you are
only postponing the inevitable!"

And with that the subject was dropped. For several days the three men
who were together for hours in the office of the Ramapo Iron and Steel
Works refrained from any discussion of the question which was most
prominent in their minds.

It was on Wednesday that the tall clock that Paul Whittier had broken
returned from the repairer's. Paul himself helped the men to set it in
its old place in the corner of the office, facing the safe, which
occupied the corner diagonally opposite.

It so chanced that Paul came down late on Thursday morning, and perhaps
this was the reason that a pressure of delayed work kept him in the
office that evening long after every one else. The clerks had all gone,
even Major Van Zandt, always the last to leave--and the porter had come
in twice before the son of the senior partner was ready to go for the
night. The gas was lighted here and there in the long, narrow, deserted
store, as Paul walked through it from the office to the street.
Opposite, the swift twilight of a New York November had already settled
down on the city.

"Can't I carry yer bag for ye, Mister Paul?" asked the porter, who was
showing him out.

"No, thank you, Mike," was the young man's answer. "That bag has very
little in it. And, besides, I haven't got to carry it far."

The next morning Paul was the first of the three to arrive. The clerks
were in their places already, but neither the senior nor the junior
partner had yet come. The porter happened to be standing under the
wagon archway as Paul Whittier was about to enter the store.

The young man saw the porter, and a mischievous smile hovered about the
corners of his mouth.

"Mike," he said, pausing on the door-step, "do you think you ought to
smoke while you are cleaning out our office in the morning?"

"Sure, I haven't had me pipe in me mouth this mornin' at all," the
porter answered, taken by surprise.

"But yesterday morning?" Paul pursued.

"Yesterday mornin'!" Mike echoed, not a little puzzled.

"Yesterday morning at ten minutes before eight you were in the private
office smoking a pipe."

"But how did you see me, Mr. Paul?" cried Mike, in amaze. "Ye was