There was a long silence, in which the
ticking of the clock upon the wall seemed unduly loud and in which the
buzz of cross-cut saws came sounding through the evening air. Yet Tarboe
did not reply.
"Have you nothing to say?" asked Grier at last. "Won't you do it--eh?"
"I'm studying the thing out," answered Tarboe quietly. "I don't quite
see about these two wills. Why shouldn't the second will be found
first?"
"Because you and I will be the only ones that'll know of it. That shows
how much I trust you, Tarboe. I'll put it away where nobody can get it
except you or me."
"But if anything should happen to me?"
"Well, I'd leave a letter with my bank, not to be opened for three years,
or unless you died, and it would say that the will existed, where it was,
and what its terms were."
"That sounds all right," but there was a cloud on Tarboe's face.
"It's a great business," said Grier, seeing Tarboe's doubt. "It's the
biggest thing a man can do--and I'm breaking up."
The old man had said the right thing--"It's a great business!" It was
the greatness of the thing that had absorbed Tarboe. It was the bigness
made him feel life could be worth living, if the huge machinery were
always in his fingers. Yet he had never expected it, and life was a
problem.
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