“Master Hawkins is a most careful gentleman,” spoke Bleekwood.
“Master Tobias Hawkins!”
“Yes. He is extraordinarily careful. He says the small things are the ones which usually wreck the largest enterprises.”
“Perhaps there is much wisdom in that,” spoke the lad, now more alert than ever.
“I dare say there is. But Master Hawkins finds many impediments in his path. Congress, or a part of it, is anxious enough to dispossess the commander-in-chief. But there are some steps which it will not countenance, and which must not be brought to its notice.”
“To be sure,” said the lad. “That I supposed taken for granted. The present affair now is——” he paused, questioningly.
“Is one of them? Why, yes.” Master Bleekwood seemed very much troubled. “It is of that sort, I understand.” He paused a moment, and then once more leaned toward Ben, confidentially. “And this being the case, I am convinced that it should not have been entrusted to me.”
“Perhaps not,” said Ben.
“A person with stronger nerves, now,” said Master Bleekwood, “would have been a more fitting selection. It has sometimes occurred to me that I would scarcely be prepared to cope with a sudden emergency.”
For the first time Ben’s attention was caught by something in the man’s tone—a lurking something which did not at all agree with his words. Without appearing to do so, Ben looked more closely into the face of the other. Its drawn thinness, he now saw, was not the result of disease. The jaw was square and powerful; the eyes, which had seemed sunken, he now noted were merely overshadowed by more than usually high cheek bones.