"
"I can make it any shape you like, and thinner than this one if you
wish it."
"Very well. Go out and get us a quart of beer, and we will drink to
your success. Here is the money."
Adolph obeyed with his usual docility, staying out, however, somewhat
longer than usual. Picard, impatient at the delay, spoke roughly to him
when he returned, and ordered him to go upstairs to his work. Adolph
departed meekly, leaving them to their beer.
"See that you understand that machine, Lamoine," said Picard. "Set it
at half an hour."
Lamoine, turning the hand to the figure VI on the dial, set the works
in motion, and to the accompaniment of its quiet tick-tick they drank
their beer.
"He seems to understand his business," said Lamoine.
"Yes," answered Picard. "What heady stuff this English beer is. I wish
we had some good French bock; this makes me drowsy."
Lamoine did not answer; he was nodding in his chair. Picard threw
himself down on his mattress in one corner of the room; Lamoine, when
he slipped from his chair, muttered an oath, and lay where he fell.
Twenty minutes later the door stealthily opened, and Adolph's head
cautiously reconnoitred the situation, coming into the silent apartment
inch by inch, his crafty eyes rapidly searching the room and filling
with malicious glee when he saw that everything was as he had planned.
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