Alas! it was valueless, mere waste paper.
He sank into a chair in a limp, hopeless posture,
quite overwhelmed. Then he sprang up suddenly,
and his expression changed to one of fury and menace.
"If Julius Gibbon has played this trick upon me,"
he said, between his set teeth, "he shall repent it--bitterly!"
CHAPTER XXVI.
A DISAGREEABLE SURPRISE.
Philip Stark sat down to breakfast in a
savage frame of mind. He wanted to be revenged
upon Gibbon, whom he suspected of
having deceived him by opening and
appropriating the bonds, and then arranged to have
him carry off the box filled with waste paper.
He sat at the table but five minutes, for he
had little or no appetite.
From the breakfast room he went out on the piazza,
and with corrugated brows smoked a cigar, but it failed
to have the usual soothing effect.
If he had known the truth he would have
left Milford without delay, but he was far
from suspecting that the deception practiced
upon him had been arranged by the man whom
he wanted to rob. While there seemed little
inducement for him to stay in Milford, he was
determined to seek the bookkeeper, and ascertain
whether, as he suspected, his confederate
had in his possession the bonds which he had
been scheming for. If so, he would compel
him by threats to disgorge the larger portion,
and then leave town at once.
But the problem was, how to see him. He
felt that it would be venturesome to go round
to the factory, as by this time the loss might
have been discovered.
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