Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-08-22

] IFS, HERE II WAS.
 when I came into the office that morn.
 ing. as usual, and found Mason alone. ! Not altogether alone-he had his bot
 tie. And he had had it and others of the
 same family all the night before. The poor drunken wretch hadn't been home
 at all. He was worse than he'd been that
 morning three days before, when had
 stood facing him and talking to him.
 while with my hands behind my back
 l was taking a wax impression of the ! lock of the desk; and he as unconscious
 of it all as Tausig himself. The last page I had dictated the day i before, which he'd been transcribing | from his notes, lay in front of him; the
 gas was still burning directly above him.
 and shade he wore over his weak eyes
 had been knocked awry as his poor old
 bald head went pumping down on the typewriter before him.
 Thes thing that favored me was | Tausig's distrust of everybody con-
 nected with him. He hates his part
 ners only a bit less than he hates the
 men outside the trust. The bigger
 and richer the syndicate grows, the
 more power and prosperity t has, the
 more he begrudges them their share of it; the more he wants 1t all for
 himself. He is madly suspicious of his clerks and hires others to watch them. fhnYn Ia io l1xr
 moving his valuables from place to 1 place, partly because he trusts no
 man, partly because he's SO deathly
 afraid his right hand will find out
 what his left is doing. He is a full
 partner. of Brann and Lowenthalm75with
 mental reservations. He has no con | fidence in either of them Half his schemes he keeps from them; the other half he tells them-part of He's for ever afraid that the syndicate of which he's the head will fall to pieces and become another syndicate of which he won't be head.
 It all makes him an unhappy, rest less little beast; but it helped me to- day. If it'd been any question of safe combinations and tangled things like that, the game would have been all up for Nancy o. But in his official safe Tausig keeps only such papers as he wants Braun and Lowenthal to see
 And in his private desk in his private office he keeps
 I stole past Mason, sleeping with his forehead on the typewriter 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 1t every minute for the last IS hours? There must be a mine of stuff in that desk ! of Tausig's, Mag The touch of every paper in it is siimy with some dirty trick. some bad secret, some mean action. It's pity that I hadn't time to go through 'em all; 1t would have been interesting: but under a bundle of womens letters, which that old fox keeps for no good reason, I'll bet, lit on a paper that made my heart go pumping like a cart over cobbles. Yes, there it was. just as obermuller had vowed il was, with Tausig's cramped little signature followed by HefeIflnger's. Dixon's andWeinstock's; a scheme to crush the business life out of men by the cleverest, upto-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 bunglsd a bit there. for Mason lifted his head and blinked dazedly at her for a moment, recog- nized her and shook his head. "No-work today" be said "No-I know I'll just look over what we've done, Mr. Mason" she an srered, cheerfuIly.
 His poor head went down again with a bob. and she caught up the type written sheets of ObeTmuller's play. She waited a minute longer; half be- cause she wanted b make sure Mason was asleep again before she tore the sheets across and crammed them down into the waste basket; half because she pitiei the old fellow and was sorry to take advantage. of his condition But she knew a cure for this last sorrT- a way shed help him later. and when she danced out into the hall she vas the very haP7iest burglar in world chock fall of opportunities
 On. she was in such a tvitter as she did it. All that old delight in do- ing somebody else up. a vague some body whose usznness she didn't knox. vas as nothing to the ioy of doing Tsusig up She rzs dancing on a vol canO again that iacorrizible Nance, Oh. but sEea a volcano. Maggie, t atoned for a year of days when there vss nothing doing DO excitement no