left-hand corner of his mouth. "Colossal--l!" he repeated.

For a moment Paul looked up from the papers spread out on the table
before him--looked with the preoccupied air of a man who is adding up
something in his mind. Then he returned to his occupation. He had been
at this work for four hours without a break. It was nearly one o'clock
in the morning. Since dinner Karl Steinmetz had consumed no less than
five cigars, while he had not spoken five words. These two men, locked
in a small room in the middle of the castle of Osterno--a room with no
window, but which gained its light from the clear heaven by a shaft and
a skylight on the roof--locked in thus they had been engaged in the
addition of an enormous mass of figures. Each sheet had been carefully
annotated and added by Steinmetz, and as each was finished he handed it
to his companion.

"Is that fool never coming?" asked Paul, with an impatient glance at the
clock.

"Our very dear friend the starosta," replied Steinmetz, "is no slave to
time. He is late."

The room had the appearance of an office. There were two safes--square
chests such as we learn to associate with the name of Griffiths in this
country. There was a huge writing-table--a double table--at which Paul
and Steinmetz were seated. There were sundry stationery cases and an
almanac or so suspended on the walls, which were oaken panels. A large
white stove--common to all Russian rooms--stood against the wall. The
room had no less than three doors, with a handle on no one of them. Each
door opened with a key, like a cupboard.