"HE STEPPED IN."
The book-keeper used to observe afterwards that a single second's deviation of characteristic thought and he would have gone mad. Stronger minds in a parallel situation would have indeed collapsed. But a weaker man can never confront the inevitable, but clings more stubbornly to hope. They are only weak individualities who, in the act of drowning, catch at straws.
As the book-keeper felt himself gradually growing faint for want of air to breathe, his revivified hope led him to deliberately crash his fist into the woodwork with which the interior of the safe was fitted, in secretaire fashion, one drawer being built above another. This gave him a few additional cubic feet of air.
As may have been conjectured, the noise which smote the book-keeper's ear was that of a drill. Although acutely discerned within, the sound was practically smothered on the outside of the vault.
At one end of the drill was a cavity, rapidly growing larger, in one of the steel panels. At its other end was a heavy, warty fist, part of the anatomy of Baptiste, the industrious mechanic. Baptiste held the drill while his comrade, Pierre, pounded it in.
Soon the two burglars became aware that some sort of animal commotion was going on within the safe. It nearly drove them into convulsions of astonishment. Baptiste was so startled that he dropped the drill.
"It is a ghost," he said.
Baptiste was for throwing up the job uncompromisingly on the spot, but this proposal met with obstacles. His fellow workman, who was of stiffer courage, rejected it with scorn, as savouring too much of the superstitious. Pierre had a large family to support, he argued. He spoke frankly. They could not afford to throw away the opportunities of Providence. To his friend and co-labourer, the burden of his remarks was:—
"Lâche! Go hon! You make me tired wiz yer ghosts an' tings. Let's not have no beast foolin'—see? De job is commence: Allons!"
The upshot of this was that Pierre and Baptiste went back to work. At the third crack of the drill, Pierre crossed himself, and said:—