Things went on in this unsatisfactory way for a long time--so long, in fact, that Hanson began to grow discouraged. And well he might, for with all his scheming he had not been able to add a single scrap of information to the first report he made to Colonel Shelby. The boy Julius held manfully to his story--that Mrs. Gray was the best kind of a Confederate, that she had no money except the dollar she carried in her pocket-book--and the most cunningly worded cross-questioning could not draw anything else from him. In process of time Fort _Sumter_ was fired upon, Marcy Gray came home from school, and then the overseer rubbed his hands joyously and told himself that he would soon know all about it. Well, he didn't, but Julius did; and this was the way it came about. In the ceiling of the dining-room, to which apartment the family usually betook themselves when they had anything private to talk about, was a stovepipe hole, communicating with a store-room on the floor above. It happened that Julius was roaming about the house one day when Mrs. Gray had company at dinner, and the sound of voices coming up through this opening attracted his attention. He listened a moment, and found that he could plainly hear every word that was uttered in the room below; but he never would have thought of playing the part of eavesdropper if Hanson had not told him that he was expected to do it. Believing that he could add to his usefulness and better guard the interests of the family if he knew more about its private affairs, Julius hastened to the store-room the minute he saw Marcy and his mother going in to breakfast, and put his ear directly over the open stovepipe hole, and heard some things that made him tremble all over. There was money in the house after all--thirty thousand dollars all in gold; it was hidden in the cellar wall, and he could earn a nice little sum by carrying the news straight to the overseer, as he had solemnly promised to do; but he never thought of it. On the contrary he strove harder than ever to make Hanson believe that there was not a dollar in the house beyond the one Mrs. Gray kept in her pocket; because why, hadn't he heard her tell Marse Marcy so with his own two ears? If the overseer did not say "money" during their interviews, Julius did; but he did not dwell long enough on the subject to arouse the man's suspicions. More than that, Julius was brave enough to "take the bull by the horns," and one day he disheartened the overseer by declaring: "I seen something dis day, Marse Hanson, dat done took my breff all plum away; I did so. Marse Marcy he come home a purpose to go into our army; and his mother she cried and cried, and pooty quick she say: 'My deah boy, dat man Linkum mus' be whopped; dat am de facs in de case'; and den she slap him on de back and sick him on. Yes, sar. I done see dat wid my own two eyes dis bery day."