Presently he stretched his hand up to a small drawer in the upper compartment of the bureau; but, instead of taking a paper or a packet from it, he took down the drawer itself, placed it on the desk before him, and began to turn over its contents with a still more darkly frowning face. Jim, at the corner of the window furthest from him, watched him so closely that he suspended the process of polishing; but Routh did not notice the cessation. Presently he came upon the papers which he had looked for, and was putting them into the breast-pocket of his coat, when he struck the drawer with his elbow, and knocked it off the desk. It fell on the floor, and its contents were scattered over the carpet. Among them was an object which rolled away into the window, and immediately caught the attention of Jim Swain. The boy looked at it, through the glass, with eyes in which amazement and fear contended. Routh picked up the contents of the drawer, all but this one object, and looked impatiently about in search of it. Then Jim, desperately anxious to see this thing nearer, took a resolution. He tapped at the window, and signed to Routh to open it and let him in. Routh, surprised, did so. "Here it is, sir," said Jim, not entering the room, but sprawling over the window-sill, and groping with his long hands along the border of a rug which sheltered the object of Routh's search from his observation--"here it is, sir. I see it when it fell, and I knowed you couldn't see it from where you was." The boy looked greedily at the object in his hand, and rolled it about once or twice before he handed it to Routh, who took it from him with a careless "Thank you." His preoccupied manner was still upon him. Then Jim shut down the window again from the outside and resumed his polishing. Routh replaced the drawer. Jim tried very hard to see where he placed the object he had held for a moment in his hand, but he could not succeed. Then Routh locked the bureau, and, opening a door of communication with the dining-room, Jim caught a momentary sight of Harriet sitting at the table, and went to his breakfast.