It was a luscious sight.
He then proceeded to a heavier task; he unscrewed, one after another, eighteen of the cases marked _Shannon,_ and the eighteen so selected, perhaps by private marks, proved to be packed close, and on a different system from the gold, viz., in pigs, or square blocks, three, or in some cases four, to each chest.

Now, these two ways of packing the specie and the baser metal, respectively, had the effect of producing a certain uniformity of weight in the thirty-six cases Wylie was inspecting.
Otherwise the gold cases would have been twice the weight of those that contained the baser metal; for lead is proverbially heavy, but under scientific tests is to gold as five to twelve, or thereabouts.
In his secret and mysterious labor Wylie was often interrupted.

Whenever he heard a step on the pavement outside he drew the slide of his lantern and hid the light.

If he had examined the iron shutters he would have seen that his light could never pierce through them into the street.

But he was not aware of this.