"Yes. The market has been going up since the first of December."
"How did he happen to get hold of them?"
"I don't know the particulars. Mr. Mason was an old friend of the family, and I presume he thought he could leave them in no better hands."
"And where are they now?"
"In his private safe."
"Humph!"
The conversation recorded above took place one evening on a Pennsylvania Railroad ferry-boat while the craft was making the trip from Jersey City to New York.
It was carried on between two men, both well dressed. He, called Allen, was a tall, sharp-nosed individual, probably fifty years of age. The other was a short, heavy-set fellow, wearing a black mustache, and having a peculiar scowl on his face.
They sat in the forward part of the gentlemen's cabin, which was but partly filled with passengers. Two seats on one side of them were vacant. On the other side sat a shabbily-dressed boy of sixteen, his hands clasped on his lap and his eyes closed.
"The safe is often left open during the day," resumed Allen, after a brief pause, during which Hardwick had offered his companion a cigar and lit one himself.