The man, meanwhile, began quietly to count over the packages
aloud from one to ten, and then to count the bills in each separate
packet, also from one to ten. Yes, there were ten little heaps,
each containing ten bills of a hundred-dollar denomination. That
made ten thousand dollars. Blake had never seen so much money in a
single lump in his life before; and for many months of privation
and discomfort he had not known the "feel" of a twenty-dollar note,
much less of a hundred-dollar one. He heard them crackle under the
man's fingers, and it was like crisp laughter in his ears. The
bills were evidently new and unused.
But, side by side with the excitement caused by the shock of
such an event, Blake's caution, acquired by a year of vivid New
York experience, was meanwhile beginni
