After a concealment he would breathe freely again, perhaps for
several nights, only to collar the Man with the Gash in the very act of
unearthing the sack. Then, on awakening in the midst of the usual
struggle, he would at once get up and transfer the bag to a new and more
ingenious crypt. It was not that he was the direct victim of these
phantasms; but he believed in omens and thought-transference, and he
deemed these dream-robbers to be the astral projection of real personages
who happened at those particular moments, no matter where they were in
the flesh, to be harboring designs, in the spirit, upon his wealth. So
he continued to bleed the unfortunates who crossed his threshold, and at
the same time to add to his trouble with every ounce that went into the
sack.
As he sat sunning himself, a thought came to Jacob Kent that brought him
to his feet with a jerk. The pleasures of life had culminated in the
continual weighing and reweighing of his dust; but a shadow had been
thrown upon this pleasant avocation, which he had hitherto failed to
brush aside. His gold-scales were quite small; in fact, their maximum
was a pound and a half,--eighteen ounces,--while his hoard mounted up to
something like three and a third times that.
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