"I might--but I don't want to get
caught."
"And you, Matt?"
"I don't mind stealing food so much," Kelson said. "In the face of so
much wealth--and waste too--it seems a bigger sin to starve than to
steal a loaf of bread."
"The lying and stealing are fixed then," Hamar laughed. "What you have
to do, too, is to make the most of every opportunity you can find of
doing people--present company excepted--bad turns."
"I don't see how--in our present condition--we can do any one much
harm," Curtis remarked. "We haven't even the means to buy a tin sword,
let alone a bomb or pistol. If we wish them ill, perhaps, that will do
instead."
"Possibly--but don't be such an ass as to wish any one any good!"
Hamar said. "Do your best to carry out the injunctions I have given
you, and we will meet here, this day week, to discuss the tests."
CHAPTER IV
THE TESTS
Seven days later, Hamar again knocked at Curtis's and Kelson's door
and walked in. A faint sigh of relief escaped him.
"I see we are all right so far," he said. "I wondered whether I should
find you both flown, or lying stretched in the icy hands of death.
Have you experimented?"
"We have," Curtis said. "We've done our best. In what way, we prefer
not to say."
"Perhaps there is no need," Hamar replied, eyeing the mantelshelf
which bore ample testimony to a full larder, and glancing at Curtis's
feet which were encased in a pair of new and very shiny boots.
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