Page:Keeban (IA keeban00balm).pdf/247

 ing just enough metal to hold the cap in place; and freshly cut; for the edges were sharp to your fingers and shining to your eyes. But of course every scrap and shaving of the metal had been cleaned away. The pipe behind the cap back of an etching on the opposite wall was exactly like this.

"It was to come that way, I guess," I said carefully to Teverson.

"Was?" he repeated as carefully. "What makes you think it isn't yet to come? Not in the middle of our meeting now, but to whoever is here, which means you and me." But he did not move away; instead, he walked to the window and stood there looking down. I glanced down too and into Wall Street and got a glimpse of that part which seemed particularly to bear a message for us this morning—that strip between Morgan's offices and the sub-treasury where people were peacefully passing and feeling absolutely secure that summer noon, not so long ago, when without warning at all that infernal no-one-yet-knows-what went off and did what nobody about Wall Street will ever forget.

Of course, what had strewed the street had been gathered up and the pavement repaired and flushed and swept and the buildings restored