"If he will contrive to give me his attention when the time comes, I shall be pleased," said Anthony. Then he cocked his eye at them, for both had amused looks and neither seemed to hold the matter as very weighty. "No doubt," said he, "as you see the thing, its promise is a dull one."
"Old ledgers are not like old wine," said Captain Weir. "And while they may be, in a manner, useful, still I can't hope that age has given them any sparkle."
"I'll promise that the items I'll offer will cut into your interest like a flash." He tapped his breast-pocket. "Give me a few more facts like these," he said, "and then a talk with you will mortar them together. After that, who can say what astonishments are in store for us all?"
Charles had a puzzled look as Anthony went out of the room, and his hands, grown thin and white, picked at the tapestry that covered the sofa.
"He's like his grandfather, indeed," said he. "A purpose grows fixed with him, and nothing can turn him from it." There was a pause, and then he asked: "What has he come upon in the books, do you think, that has so taken his attention?"
"It would puzzle me to say," replied Captain Weir. "But, then, a pair of quick eyes and an insistent, inquiring mind have often turned up a vital fact in mold deader than Rufus Stevens' Sons' old ledgers."
Charles lay back in his sofa and studied Weir for a moment, his hands still picking at the tapestry.
"You've never felt much beholden to youth," said Charles to Weir, "and your expressed thoughts on its aspirations and vagaries and proneness to make much of little have always worn a cutting edge. But I've never seen, in your manner or tone, that you've thought Anthony a fool."
"The man who takes him for a fool," said Captain Weir, with a wry smile, "will quickly learn to alter his opinion." There was a pause; the captain looked through the window into the sun-lit street, his brows were thickened and heavy over his cold eyes. "As to the books," he added, "if your nephew says he's come at something in them, it's safe to say he has; and, if he says he means to astonish us, in my opinion we'd do well to prepare for something unusual."
That night, as Christopher Dent sat in his laboratory, his big spectacles on his nose, a candle beside him and the usual bulky black-letter volume in his hands, Anthony came in. The young man sat down in a chair and lighted his long-stemmed clay; and the little apothecary talked of the problems that rise up in one's daily path and make life, if not a vexation, at least an uncertainty.