knew--that another peril was yawning. Harris hurried me to our Reade
Street lair and gave particulars.

"It seems," said Harris, quite out of breath with the speed we'd made
in hunting cover, "that A.T. Stewart is for America the sole agent of
these particular brands of silk which we've brought in. Some one to
whom we've offered them has notified the Stewart company. At this
moment and as we sit here, the detectives belonging to Stewart, and
for all I may guess, the whole Central Office as well, are on our
track. They want to discover who has these silks; and how they came
in, since the customs records show no such importations. And there's a
dark characteristic to these silks. Each bolt has its peculiar,
individual selvage. Each, with a sample of its selvage, is registered
at the home looms. Could anyone get a snip of a selvage he could
return with it to Lyons, learn from the manufacturers' book just when
it was woven, when sold, and to whom. I can tell you one thing,"
observed Harris, as he concluded his story, "we're in a bad corner."

How the cold drops spangled my brows! I began to wish with much heart
that I'd never met Harris; nor heard, that Trinity churchyard day, of
Cornbury and his devious smuggling methods of gathering wealth.

There was one ray of hope; neither Harris nor I had disclosed our
names, nor the whereabouts or quantity of the silks; and as each had
been dealing with folk with whom he'd never before met, we were both
as yet mysteries unsolved. Nor were we ever solved. Harris and I kept
off the streets during daylight hours for a full month. We were not
utterly idle; we unpleasantly employed ourselves in trimming away that
tell-tale selvage. Preferring safety to profit, we put forth no
efforts to realize on our speculations for almost a year. By that time