"`The method practised by Monsieur Foucault in silvering the surfaces of
glass specula.' I seem to have dipped into the wrong drawer, dad," he
said coolly.
James Brandon groaned.
"I made so sure that I had got the right things. They do look like
legal papers, don't they?"
Sam's father made no reply, but began walking up and down the room.
"What does he mean by tying up his stupid recipes like that!" said Sam
angrily.
"Exposed yourself to all that risk, and for nothing," cried James
Brandon.
"Don't say `yourself,' dad," cried Sam softly. "It was your doing; you
sent me."
James Brandon was silent for a time.
"You are sure he did not know you?" he said at last.
"Of course I am. Don't I tell you it was dark as pitch?"
"Then how do you know it was Tom who came?"
"Who else was likely to come?"
"Of course--of course," murmured James Brandon; "who indeed?"
"Besides, that other chap was outside, and helped me with the ladder."
James Brandon gave quite a jump.
"That other chap?" he cried. "You don't mean to say any one else saw
you?"
"Yes, a fellow I saw when I was down there before; he came and caught me
trying to get in."
James Brandon threw out his hands, and walked up and down his son's
bedroom gesticulating.
"It's all over," he cried wildly; "it's all over. I'm a ruined man. My
position as a solicitor gone; my character destroyed; the money I had
saved swept away; and all through the stupidity of my own son."
Sam sat back watching his father curiously, as he paced about the place,
addressing, as it seemed to him, the walls, the windows, and at times
the pieces of furniture. He repeated the same things over and over
again as he bemoaned his ill-fortune, and the way in which his plans had
been brought to naught. Reproach after reproach was piled upon Sam, but
the father did not glance at his son, who still watched him, but with
eyes that grew fixed and dull-looking, till all at once the lids began
to fall, opened up again, fell lower, opened again, and then went right
down, and were not raised.
For Sam was utterly exhausted by his many hours' exertions, and his
father's monotonous, droning voice, as he went on bemoaning his fate,
after irritating him for a time, and making him ready to make retorts,
gradually began to have a soothing effect, making him feel drowsy; then
more drowsy, and at last, when James Brandon paused before the chair in
which the lad lay back, and gazed full in his face, saying--
"What I want to know, sir, is, how you could be such an obstinate idiot
as to persist in going your own way, after all my strong,
carefully-thought-out advice?--what I want to know, I say, is--why, he's
asleep!"
James Brandon was quite right--his son had dropped off into a deep,
dreamless sleep, and it is probable that if he had shouted in his ear
instead of speaking in a subdued, hurried voice, he would not have
succeeded in awaking him to the sense of anything he said.