“To order?” Paul asked.
Mr. Grant chuckled softly. “It was very much that way. A friend of his, who went to England, brought back the works at his request. Then a traveling cabinet maker and jack-of-all-trades put the case together, according to his ideas. Oh, yes, the journeyman and journeying mechanic was an institution of those days; he’d make you a chest of drawers, or a table, or a clock case, or anything else. So great-grandfather picked his trees, and cut his lumber, and sawed his boards, and had the wood thoroughly seasoned when the jack-of-all-trades came around to build just such a clock as he wanted.”
Paul nodded. “It seems to have been mighty good work, sir.”
“That was a way they had,” said Mr. Grant. “They didn’t have so many things then that they could afford to put up with slipshod work.” Then he turned to the Shark, who had marched up to a framed map, hanging near the clock, and was peering at it through his spectacles.
“There’s an odd heirloom, young man. Know what it is?”
“Of course,” said the Shark crisply. “Relief map—I’ve seen the big one of the whole state in the capitol.”
“Right! But this just shows Sugar Valley.”
“So I see,” quoth the Shark quite as crisply as before, and continued his study. The map was like a carving, depressions being represented by gouges in the wood of which it was made, and tiny ridges showing the terraces before one came to the greater elevation of the bordering hills. The course of the river and its tributary brooks could be very clearly followed. The Shark ran a finger along one of the curving levels, an action which caught the attention of Mrs. Grant. Instantly she was beside him.
“Well, did you find any?” she demanded; her tone was hardly tart, but it was tinged with suspicion.
“Of course I did,” said the Shark. “I knew it’d have to be there.”