Ben Mayberry was so well satisfied that it was the Mechanics’ that, after leaving me, he went in that direction, anxious to see a first-class burglary attempted and foiled.
The institution, it will be remembered, stood on the corner of one of the main streets, and a lamp was burning directly opposite. The cashier reported that two suspicious characters had called during the day and made some inquiries about drafts on New York, and the officers, who had spent much time in the neighborhood, were convinced that they had seen the same individuals stealthily viewing the bank from the outside.
When Ben reached the vicinity he saw no person, although he well knew that in almost every dark nook and hiding place, a guardian of the law was stationed, quietly awaiting the moment when the lawbreakers would dare show themselves. Ben knew, too, that more than one pair of eyes carefully scrutinized him as they did every pedestrian who passed.
He continued along until he reached a point where he could stand without being noticed by anyone. Then he stopped, and, wide awake as ever, resolved that he would see the thing out if he was forced to stand where he was until the rising of the sun on the morrow.
CHAPTER XXI
“LAY LOW!”
The clock in the tower of the City Hall solemnly boomed the hour of midnight. Damietta lay wrapped in slumber—that is, so far as the majority of her citizens were concerned. Her guardians of the peace, as a rule, were wide awake, and the dozens stationed within the vicinity of her three national banks were particularly so.
Ben Mayberry counted the strokes of the iron tongue, and reflected that Thursday was gone, and Friday had begun. As yet nothing had been seen or heard to indicate that anything unlawful was contemplated in this immediate neighborhood. More than once he was so well convinced that my view of the case was correct, that he was on the point of starting homeward, but he checked himself and stayed.