The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1891-02-27
Hall.

hSiS ~uo u llouC IOOul anu tWO
rooms, with n hall the length of these
latter. One room, us you see, was
exactly over the vault, and this leads me,
to tell you how the vault was built. Fl
was Of brick, and two feet thick, and at
the top the joists of the second floor
were covered with boiler plates. The,
spaces between the joists were filed in,
with cement. On top Of the second,
floor joists, before laying the floor, wei
laid other plates OF iron, and when the
bank was opened for business we had
little fear of our cash being stolen by
any tenant of the upstairs rooms.
The idea was to rent the rooms to
lawyers or doctors, but the first caller
decided to take all three, and to pay one
wears rent in advance. lie was stranger
to all, but gave his name as Samuel Gold
waithe, and explained that he was an
inventor, and was then seeking to per-
feet certain tools for the use of miners.
One Of his ideas was drill to be worked
by turning wheel. The man had
frank, open face, n smooth tongue, and
when he offered to put down whole
years rent in advance it would not have
been business TO keep him out. While
MIR. Dcsnoyers, my partner, was per-,
fectly satisfied rs to our upstairs man, Z
| ---JP--- .ro WAC .,oU W mat
he claimed to be, or that no had any de-
signs against us, but somehow felt my
self suspcctng him from the first
moment l saw his face. He hadn't got
settled in his rooms when 1 planned he
] would enter our vault by way of the
| back room, or at least make an attempt
to do SO, and this idea was never out of
my mind thereafter. l was laughed mt
! bv my partner, 3u; rmis only made me the
more obstinate in clinging to my idea.
Goldwaithc furnished the front room
as n reception room and Office, the sec
ond as n bedroom and the third us his
workshop. Exactly over the vault ho
had carpenter put up heavy frame
work of beams, and among the stuff
moved in was chisels, hammers, augers,
bits, drills, files, saws and many other
carpenters and mechanics tools.
could say nothing, as he made use of all
these as an inventor, but my suspicious
regarding his final object were contin
ualiy strengthened.
For three months our man up stairs
scarcely entered the bank below or spoke
to one of us, except as i met him at the
hotel where we both boarded Ho was
so quiet and easy spoken that everybody
had a good word for him, and he invited
many OF the townspeoplc to visit his
rooms and examine his work. At the
end OF six months he was universally
J liked and respected, and if be had want
cd n couple Of hundred dollars at our
bank dozen business men would have
backed his note. While had become
ashamed to longer mention my suspicious
they had bv no means left me. We had
no watchman, and the safe in the vault
was one of the old pattern which was
neither fire nor burglar proof. My chief
dependence was on the strength of the
vault. made all sorts OF estimates, but
finally decided that Goldwaithe could
not cut his way down into the vault and
open the safe in less than twelve hours
at the very least. The tools and appl,.
ances OF that day were very crude com.
pared to the modern.
The manu- stairs had been with us
hall year, and no one oouta find the
least fault with his conduct, when he
seemed to make special effort to win
my friendship. Up to this time he had
passed the evenings in his rooms. With.
out saying word to my partner, I had
passed my evenings in the bank, never
leaving until about ten o'clock. did
this to shorten Goldwaithe's time, pro.
Viding he intended to enter the vault.
was always at the bank at half past
seven in the morning, and this would
give him only nine and a half hours to