"An honest, good ship, mind you--and in mid-ocean! Who can be sure she'd foundered? With her timbers tight and her hatches down, who can be sure her cargo has been injured?" He took up his hat, and Christopher saw that his hand trembled as he did so. "I will be going," said Tom Horn; "it is past my bedtime, and there is a deal for me to do to-morrow. I have many figures to set down and much study to give them. Good night." "Good night," said Christopher, rounder-eyed than ever. He followed Tom to the door, and watched him down Water Street. "Good night." Christopher, after he'd seen the odd clerk out of sight, shut the door, and sat down. But he did not sit long; in a few moments he was up and pacing the floor in much agitation; then he busied himself with some formulas, ground many powders and weighed them in a tiny scale. But he could not take his mind from the surprising thought Tom Horn had planted there; and afterward, when he had gone to bed, he lay and counted the hours each time the clock struck them; at three he fell asleep, and dreamed of wondrous events, and happenings that made him marvel. It was the middle of the morning when he left off his work, brushed his coat, went to the side door, and asked to see mademoiselle. And while he sat upon the edge of a chair, she upon a sofa before him, he told her, word for word, as well as he could remember, of what Tom Horn had said the night before. "Too much heed can be given to such things," said Christopher; "for we all have our desires, and so may be led astray by speculations which have no substance. And, again, poor Tom, while a person of many rare qualities is--so it's thought--odd in his manner and in his thinking. So this may be a mad thing only. But it's kept with me all night long and has been at the elbow of my mind so far in the morning; and I thought it as well to speak to some one who I knew had interest in the matter." There was a spot of color in each of the cheeks of mademoiselle; her eyes sparkled with eager excitement. She asked Christopher many questions; he answered as fully as he could; all the things the clerk had said, he repeated, but further than that he could not go. "It may be his fancy, as I've said," he told mademoiselle. "I'd pin no faith to it that it carried any value." "And why not?" asked the girl. "Why should you not? For me, I'd credit him with a deal of knowledge, a deal deeper than most. His mind is quite clear, for all his manner is odd, as the matters I've heard he's said to Anthony Stevens and the things he's pointed out have shown. He is the one among them all in the counting-room who had the keenness to see and the purpose to remember." "It is so," said the little apothecary. "It is so, indeed. I had something of that in my mind, and it troubled me." "I should like to speak with him," said mademoiselle. "It may be that with questioning he would say more."