There was small active harm in the somewhat passive soul of John Eddring's assistant, William Carson, the large-handed young man who acted as clerk and stenographer and rendered more or less blundering service about the office. Perhaps there was more of curiosity than evil in his nature. It was curiosity in the first place which gave him personal knowledge of a certain list of judgment claims against the Y.V. railway, which the chief agent of that road had recently cautioned Eddring, division agent, to keep revised up to date and to hold close under cover as a matter of absolute secrecy. These things were more or less familiar to William Carson through his acquaintance with the correspondence of the office. This very injunction of secrecy inflamed his curiosity to the point of action. In the absence of his chief, he rummaged through the office papers until he unearthed these lists, and to these latter he gave a more careful scrutiny than he had accorded many other matters under his immediate charge. He figured up the totals of the unpaid claims, and the figures startled him. He reflected that so much money in one sum would represent very many things to him personally. This established, he reflected further that it was in the first place most unrighteous to withhold these sums from the lawful claimants, and in the second place, to withhold them from himself. He was sure that the company did not need, and ought not to have, this money. If only, thought William Carson, these judgments might be collected, and if only--but beyond this thought his brain was not shrewd enough to travel. It needed a bolder mind, and this, as it chanced, was at hand, after the devil's fashion in such affairs. Henry Decherd had known Carson in the community where he had lived before his removal to the city. The two had since then met by chance now and again on the street or elsewhere. Once, when Eddring chanced to be out of town, they happened to meet and paused for a conversation longer than usual. There came a hint from Carson, a word of quick inquiry from Decherd, a flush of timorous guilt upon the face of the unfaithful humble one; and presently these two repaired to the office of the claim agent, locked the door behind them, and soon were absorbed in certain lines and columns of figures which had been prepared by Carson. "This ain't for ten years, nor half of it," said the latter, at length. "But you can see it runs up to a good lot of money. Look here." Decherd gave a long whistle as he looked at the footings of the columns of figures. "And they're all unpaid claims," he said. "Judgments from one end of the line to the other, it looks like. By Jove, it does seem that the road had to pay for about everything in the Delta, doesn't it?"