Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was
rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store,
or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the
merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected
heaps.

The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to
his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the
brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy
cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves
and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one
but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of
the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by
year.

When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his
small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow.

"Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high
desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles,
that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled
and angular face.

"I thought I should find you here!" said North.

"You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow
the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose
father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in
Mount Hope.