Wondering, and yet with a prompt confidence which conveyed an agreeable flattery which the cleverest diplomacy could not have achieved, Dennis, holding his absurd medium at a level which permitted him to receive the stimulation of a sympathetic glance now and then, began.
CHAPTER VII
Considering the unaccustomed position in which Raikes had placed himself in arranging to retire the night before, he awoke with considerable astonishment to the realization that he had passed a night of undisturbed slumber.
Aside from a slight disposition to stretch his lean limbs unduly, and a feeling of insecurity attending his first efforts to stand, he was not aware of any inconvenience from his singular siesta.
At last, after having re-established his creaking equilibrium and resumed his accustomed furtive regard of things, he was suddenly reminded by the shifted position of the furniture of the purpose of this makeshift barricade.
At once the shuddering dread which had attended his recent visits to the secret recess returned with numbing chills and sinking spirit.
He advanced his bony hand, gnarled and mean with useless abstemiousness and miserable abnegations, and revolved the button in the concave. In response, the false register swung back; in another tense moment the inner space was revealed, and his treasury laid bare.
For an instant, in the manner of an apprehensive child who postpones as long as possible some unwelcome confirmation, Raikes closed his eyes, and when he opened them again they rested, with unerring precision, upon a bag somewhat detached from the others, which protruded at its sides with those frightful points and angles with which he had become so unhappily familiar of late.