I stole past Mason, sleeping with his forehead on the type-writer keys—he'll be lettered like the obelisk when he wakes up—and crept into the next room to see just what Tausig keeps in that private desk of his.
Oh, yes, it was locked. But hadn't I been carrying the key to it every minute for the last forty-eight hours? There must be a mine of stuff in that desk of Tausig's, Mag. The touch of every paper in it is slimy with some dirty trick, some bad secret, some mean action. It's a pity that I hadn't time to go through 'em all; it would have been interesting; but under a bundle of women's letters, which that old fox keeps for no good reason, I'll bet, I lit on a paper that made my heart go bumping like a cart over cobbles.
Yes, there it was, just as Obermuller had vowed it was, with Tausig's cramped little signature followed by Heffelfinger's, Dixon's and Weinstock's; a scheme to crush the business life out of men by the cleverest, up-to-date Trust deviltry; a thing that our Uncle Sammy just won't stand for.
And neither will Nancy Olden, Miss Monahan.
She grabbed that precious paper with a gasp of delight and closed the desk.
But she bungled a bit there, for Mason lifted his head and blinked dazedly at her for a moment, recognized her and shook his head.
"No—work to-day," he said.
"No—I know. I'll just look over what we've done, Mr. Mason," she answered cheerfully.
His poor head went down again with a bob, and she caught up the type-written sheets of Obermuller's play. She waited a minute longer; half because she wanted to make sure Mason was asleep again before she tore the sheets across and crammed them down into the waste-basket; half because she pitied the old fellow and was sorry to take advantage of his condition. But she knew a cure for this last sorry—a way she'd help him later; and when she danced out into the hall she was the very happiest burglar in a world chock full of opportunities.
Oh, she was in such a twitter as she did it! All that old delight in doing somebody else up, a vague somebody whose meannesses she didn't know, was as nothing to the joy of doing Tausig up. She was dancing on a volcano again, that incorrigible Nance! Oh, but such a volcano, Maggie! It atoned for a year of days when there was nothing doing; no excitement, no risk, nothing to keep a girl interested and alive.