is little mine
is developing itself, I very often have blocks of silver here to a
considerable amount."

"I have often thought you must have, father."

"You were quite right, and they are stored below this floor in a strong
cellar cut and blasted out of the solid rock. I have good doors and
keys, and take every precaution; but at the same time I often feel that
it is very unsafe, and of course I send it into town as often as I can."

"But you don't think, father--"

"That Jonas Uggleston would steal it? I hope not, my boy; but at the
same time I feel as if I ought not to expose myself to risks, and I
prefer to keep Jonas Uggleston at the same distance as he has before
stood. We can be civil."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Sorry?"

"Yes, father," I replied, "because I like Bigley Uggleston."

"So do I, my boy. I like his quiet modesty under ordinary
circumstances, and the sterling manner in which you have told me that he
has come to the front in emergencies. But stop: I don't ask you to
break with him, for he may be useful to us after all. There, let me
finish these figures I am setting down, and I'll talk to you again."

I sat down and watched him, and then looked round the bare office, with
its high up window close to the ceiling, and ladder leading to the two
rooms above. Spread over the floor was a large foreign rug that my
father had brought from the Mediterranean many years before, and this
rug was stretched over the middle of the large office as if it had been
brought from the cottage to make the place more homelike and
comfortable. But it struck me all at once that the rug had been placed
there to hide a trap-door. Then, as I sat looking about, I noticed that
the door was very thick and strong, and that there were bars at the
window in which the glass was set.

I might have noticed all this before, but it did not seem of any
consequence till my father talked of the bars of silver and their value,
and as I sat thinking, the place began to look quite romantic, and I
thought what a strange affair it would be, and how exciting if robbers
or smugglers were to come and attack it, and my father, and Sam, and the
men from the mine to have to defend it, and there were to be a regular
fight.

Once started thinking in that vein my mind grew busy, and I felt that if
I were at the head of affairs I should arrange to have plenty of swords
and pistols, and that made me think of old Sam and the cannon down the