“Yeh,” said Mr. Cornelius, rubbing the wound tenderly against the roof of his mouth.
“Give me a chisel!” bellowed Sam. “Where’s a chisel? I want a chisel!”
§ 2
“Bleck my soul!” said Mr. Cornelius. He spoke a little thickly, for his tongue was still painful. But its anguish was forgotten under the spell of a stronger emotion. Five minutes had passed since Sam’s remarkable outburst in the drawing-room; and now, with Mr. Wrenn and Kay, he was standing in the top back bedroom of San Rafael, watching the young man as he drew up from the chasm in which he had been groping a very yellowed, very dusty package which crackled and crumbled in his fingers.
“Bleck my soul!” said Mr. Cornelius.
“Good heavens!” said Mr. Wrenn.
“Sam!” cried Kay.
Sam did not hear their voices. With the look of a mother bending over her sleeping babe, he was staring at the parcel.
“Two million!” said Sam, choking. “Two million—count ’em—two million!”
A light of pure avarice shone in his eyes. He looked like a man who had never heard of the unhappy fate of Dwight Blenkiron, of Chicago, Illinois, and Genevieve, his bride, née Poskitt; or who, having heard, did not give a whoop.