"Well," I thought, "you are the most particular man I ever knew—and the most anxious! I don't know, though—it's natural enough; if I can't keep away from this house, it's not strange that he should want to see all of it he can. It's natural enough, and it does him credit."
But Mr. Markson's next action was neither natural nor to his credit. He took off his traveling shawl, and disclosed a carpenter's brace; this and the shawl he laid on the ground, and then he examined the sills at the corners, where they were joined.
They were only half joined, as we say in the trade—that is, the ends of each piece of timber were sawn half through and the partially detached portions cut out, so that the ends lapped over each other.
Well, Mr. Markson hastily stacked up bricks and boards to the height of the foundation, and then made a similar stack at the other end of the foundation-wall, and then he rolled one of the sills over on these two supports, so it was bottom side up. Then he fitted a bit—a good wide one, an inch and a quarter, at least, I should say—to the brace, and then commenced boring a hole in the sill.
I was astonished, but not too much so to be angry. That piece of timber was mine; Mr. Markson had not paid me a cent yet, and was not to do so until the next morning, after examining the foundations and sills.
I had heard of such tricks before; my old employer had had men secretly injure a building, so as to claim it was not built according to contract when the money came due, but none of them did it so early in the course of the business.
Within a few seconds my opinion of Mr. Markson's smartness altered greatly, and so did my opinion of human nature in general. I would have sadly, but promptly sold out my contract with Mr. Markson for the price of a ticket for the West, and I should have taken the first train.
As he bored that hole I could see just how all the other builders in town would look when I had to take the law on Markson, and how all my friends would come and tell me I ought to have insisted on a payment in advance.
But, after several sorrowful moments had elapsed, I commenced to think, and I soon made up my mind what I would do. I would not descend from the tree while he was there—I have too much respect for my person to put it at the mercy of an ill-disposed individual. But as soon as he left the place, I would hasten to the ground, follow him, and demand an explanation. He might be armed, but I was, too—there were hard characters at Bartley, and they knew my pocket-book was sometimes full.
Hole after hole that man bored; he made one join another until he had a string of them ten inches long, or thereabouts; then he began another string, right beside the first, and then another.