116 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



that gold was a hard nut to crack. We had a 

 late session the night the loss was discovered for 

 every one was anxious. We sent our memories 

 back to the third day and lived it over again. 

 Step by step, from delivery book, check book, 

 and memories we traced transactions one by one. 

 Every delivery had been made and every deliv- 

 ery properly paid for, but we had paid for twen- 

 ty-five thousand more than we had delivered and 

 that twenty-five had melted away. Transac- 

 tions had been large, and deliveries so late that 

 there had been much giving of receipts and some 

 confusion. 



I became convinced that we had received all 

 the gold we had paid for and that the missing 

 gold had been delivered in excess to some house 

 to which we had a large lot going. There were 

 three houses to which we had delivered lots of 

 one hundred thousand or more where the mis- 

 take might have happened. In all other cases 

 the chance of the error had been substantially 

 eliminated. Whatever house had that thirty- 

 five or forty thousand dollars in value of ours 



