“Did you find out anything of the boy?”

“Yes, some things, but none that it would be of advantage to you to know.”

“Well, stick to him, now that you have got hold of him.”

“I intend to.”

“Good for you!”

“I imagine that he has been pretty well drilled,” said Mrs. Dillingham, “and told just what he may and must not say to any one.”

“You can work it out of him.  I’ll risk you.”

Mrs. Dillingham could hardly restrain her impatience, but said quietly: 

“I fancy I have discovered all the secrets I shall ever discover in him.  I like the boy, and shall cultivate his acquaintance; but, really, it will not pay you to rely upon me for anything.  He is under Mr. Balfour’s directions, and very loyal.”

Mr. Belcher remembered his own interview with the lad, and recognized the truth of the statement.  Then he bade her good-bye, rejoined his wife, and rode home.

CHAPTER XIX.

IN WHICH MR. BELCHER BECOMES PRESIDENT OF THE CROOKED VALLEY RAILROAD, WITH LARGE “TERMINAL FACILITIES,” AND MAKES AN ADVENTURE INTO A LONG-MEDITATED CRIME.

Mr. Belcher had never made money so rapidly as during the summer following his removal to New York.  The tides of wealth rolled in faster than he could compute them.  Twenty regiments in the field had been armed with the Belcher rifle, and the reports of its execution and its popularity among officers and men, gave promise of future golden harvests to the proprietor.  Ten thousand of them had been ordered by the Prussian Government.  His agents in France, Russia, Austria, and Italy, all reported encouragingly concerning their attempts to introduce the new arm into the military service of those countries.  The civil war had advanced the price of, and the demand for, the products of his mills at Sevenoaks.  The people of that village had never before received so good wages, or been so fully employed.  It seemed as if there were work for every man, woman and child, who had hands willing to work.  Mr. Belcher bought stocks upon a rising market, and unloaded again and again, sweeping into his capacious coffers his crops of profits.  Bonds that early in the war could be bought for a song, rose steadily up to par.  Stocks that had been kicked about the market for years, took on value from day to day, and asserted themselves as fair investments.  From these, again and again, he harvested the percentage of advance, until his greed was gorged.

That he enjoyed his winnings, is true; but the great trouble with him was that, beyond a certain point, he could show nothing for them.  He lived in a palace, surrounded by every appointment of luxury that his wealth could buy.  His stables held the choicest horse-flesh that could be picked out of the whole country, from Maine to Kentucky.  His diamond shirt-studs were worth thousands.  His clothes were of the most expensive fabrics, made at the top of the style.  His wife and children had money lavished upon them without stint.  In the direction of show, he could do no more.  It was his glory to drive in the Park alone, with his servants in livery and his four horses, fancying that he was the observed of all observers, and the envied of all men.