It was nearly one o'clock in the morning.

Since dinner Karl Steinmetz had consumed no less than five cigars, while he had not spoken five words.

These two men, locked in a small room in the middle of the castle of Osterno--a room with no window, but which gained its light from the clear heaven by a shaft and a skylight on the roof--locked in thus they had been engaged in the addition of an enormous mass of figures.

Each sheet had been carefully annotated and added by Steinmetz, and as each was finished he handed it to his companion.
"Is that fool never coming ?" asked Paul, with an impatient glance at the clock.
"Our very dear friend the starosta," replied Steinmetz, "is no slave to time.

He is late." The room had the appearance of an office.