CHAPTER XII
GATHERING CLOUDS
Another week passed. Dick had recovered his natural spirits, since it was impossible for a boy of his buoyant disposition to hug worry to his heart for any great length of time.
Mr. Goodwyn could find no fault in his conduct; he was intelligent, quick, respectful and accurate; and yet the cashier kept tabs of his movements as though constantly looking for a weak place in his armor.
Would he find it after a while; could the boy continue to be as perfect right along as he seemed just now, and should the time come, was Mr. Goodwyn mean enough to look upon an accidental mistake as a crime?
This was what made Dick anxious; anyone was apt to make a slip once in a while—in the bookkeeping department it happened every month when they were taking off their trial balance, and then hours had to be consumed, and midnight gas burned until the error was found and rectified; but what was an ordinary mistake with one person might be magnified into an enormous blunder in another.
Accordingly, having this uneasy feeling in connection with Mr. Graylock's vindictive animosity, Dick was put on his guard one day when the cashier sent him with a note to the department store.
He had not been in it since that day when Pliny told him about the talk between Archibald Graylock and the cashier.
As he entered the big building it seemed to him that there was a difference in the air of things somehow; the clerks behind the counter were actually taking things easier than he had ever known them to do, and several were even conversing together—why, he actually heard a low laugh as he passed along, something that had hitherto been unknown in the Graylock store.
Apparently the proprietor must have been relaxing his eternal vigilance for some reason or other.