Uncle Seth was marking lines on the margin of the newspaper before them.

"I wonder," he began, "how much—"

Then they talked in undertones, and I heard nothing more.

CHAPTER V
A MYSTERIOUS PROJECT

For three days I watched with growing amazement the strange behavior of my uncle. Now he would sit hunched up over his desk and search through a great pile of documents from the safe; now he would toss the papers into his strong box, lock it, and return it to its place in the vault, and pace the floor in a revery so deep that you could speak in his very ear without getting a reply. At one minute he would be as cross as a devil's imp, and turn on you in fury if you wished to do him a favor; at the next he would fairly laugh aloud with good humor.

The only man at whom he never flew out in a rage was Cornelius Gleazen, and why this should be so, I could only guess. You may be sure that I, and others, tried hard to fathom the secret, when the two of them were sitting at my uncle's desk over a huge mass of papers, as they were for hours at a time.

On the noon of the third day they settled themselves together at the desk and talked interminably in undertones. Now Uncle Seth would bend over his papers; now he would look off across the road and the meadows to the woods beyond. Now he would put questions; now he would sit silent. An hour passed, and another, and another. At four o'clock they were still there, still talking in undertones. At five o'clock their heads were closer together than ever. Now Neil Gleazen was tapping on the top of his beaver. He had a strange look, which I did not understand, and between his eyes and the flashing of his diamond as his finger tapped the hat, he charmed me as if he were a snake. Even Sim Muzzy was watching them curiously, and on Arnold Lamont's fine, sober face there was an expression of mingled wonder and distrust.

Customers came, and we waited on them; and when they had gone, the two were still there. The clocks were striking six when I faced about, hearing their chairs move, and saw them shaking hands and smiling. Then Cornelius Gleazen went away, and my uncle, carefully locking up his papers, went out, too.