It had, from its appearance, been there years; it was strange he had never noticed it before.
An old man, one of the night guards of the Treasury, buttoned to the chin, was standing in a narrowish basement door-way of the great building not fifteen feet away.

The old man took his pipe out of his mouth, and seeing Storri survey the obstructing platform, observed: "If I had a sack or two of the billions of gold that's been dumped on that platform, I wouldn't be smokin' my pipe 'round here to-night." Gold as a term never failed to attract the Storri ear.

He opened converse with the old man of the pipe.

It was to this heavy platform the treasure-wagons backed up when they brought bullion to the Treasury.
Storri learned another thing that gave him the sort of thrill that setters feel when in the near vicinity of a covey of grouse.

The vault that held the gold reserve was within sixty feet of him as he stood in the street.