The sales made to Valentine Simmons were, invariably,
formal in record, the signatures were all
witnessed.

It was a slow, fatiguing process. A number of
the original vendors, Gordon knew, had died, their
families were scattered; others had removed from
the County; logical substitutes had to be evolved.
The mere comparison of the various entries, the tracing
of the tracts to the amounts involved, was
scarcely within Gordon's ability.

He labored through the swiftly-falling dusk into
the night, and took up the task early the following
morning. A large part of the work had to be done
a second, third, time -- his brain, unaccustomed to
concentrated mental processes, soon grew weary; he
repeated aloud a fact of figures without the least
comprehension of the sounds formed by his lips, and
he would say them again and again, until he had
forced into his blurring mind some significance,
some connection.

He would fall asleep over his table, his scattered
papers, in the grey daylight, or in the radiance of a
large glass lamp, and stay immobile for hours, while
his dog lay at his feet, or, uneasy, nosed his sharp,
relaxed knees.

No one would seek him, enter his house, break his
exhausted slumbers. Lying on an out-flung arm his
head with its sunken, closed eyes, loose lips, seemed

[[332]]

p331 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p332w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p333

v?