On the day
after he left, two volumes of Patent Office reports and a Blue Book of
Congress, purchased that day by me at a store on Pennsylvania avenue,
were MISSING,--missing! I had difficulty, sir, great difficulty in
keeping it from the papers!"
As Mr. Wiles had heard the story already from Gashwiler's acquaintances,
with more or less free comment on the gifted legislator's economy, he
could not help thinking that the difficulty had been great indeed. But
he only fixed his malevolent eye on Gashwiler and said:
"So he is gone, eh?"
"Yes."
"And you've made an enemy of him? That's bad."
Mr. Gashwiler tried to look dignifiedly unconcerned; but something in
his visitor's manner made him uneasy.
"I say it is bad, if you have. Listen. Before I left here, I found at a
boardinghouse where he had boarded, and still owed a bill, a trunk which
the landlord retained. Opening it, I found some letters and papers to
yours, with certain memoranda of his, which I thought ought to be in
YOUR possession.
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