In his memory was the combination written in bold white characters as upon a blackboard. Eel-like, he squeezed through and landed on the concrete floor. Careful. . . . He tiptoed up, tried the knob and pushed the door in slowly. Then his courage ebbed; his imagination wove dangers.

Perhaps someone was waiting in there, ready to shoot? He dangled his cap on a forefinger and pushed it past the jamb of the door. If anyone fired, they would shoot his cap first. He widened the door, holding the crowbar above his head, ready to beat off an assailant. The rumble of a streetcar brought him to himself; he entered the room. Moonlight streaked in through a side window. He confronted the safe, then checked himself. Better look around. . . . He stepped to a closed door. Perhaps someone was hiding in there? He opened it and saw a small washbowl and a faucet. He opened another door and saw a dark, seemingly empty room. He closed the door again and turned back to the safe and fingered the dial and found that it moved with ease. Then he laughed and spun the dial just for the fun of it.

He set to work. . . . He turned the dial to the figures he saw upon the blackboard of his memory. It was ridiculously easy, so easy that he thought that maybe the safe had not been locked. The heavy door eased loose. He caught hold of the handle and pulled hard, but the door swung with a momentum of its own. Breathless, he gaped inside at the piles of green bills, the long rows of wrapped coins. He glanced guiltily over his shoulder; it seemed impossible that someone should not call him to stop, brand him guilty. . . .

What place is this? He wondered. He noticed for the first time the black lettering that curved in reverse across the window. He spelled out: HILLMAN AND SWANSON. REAL ESTATE AND INSURANCE. They’ll be some surprised when they open up in the morning, he thought. Yes; he remembered the firm; it collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks; now he was taking just a little of it, not to spend, but just to keep around and look at. He held open the top of the sack and lifted up a thick, heavy, compactly tied wad of green money; the bills were crisp and new and he admired the clean-cut edges. Washington sure knows how to make this stuff, he mumbled. He rubbed the money with his fingers, as though expecting it suddenly to reveal secret qualities. It’s just like any other kind of paper, he observed with a musing smile. He lifted the wad to his nose and smelt the fresh odor of ink, then he dropped the wad into the sack and picked up another.

As he toyed with the money, there was in him no sense of possessiveness; he was intrigued with the shape and form and color of it, with the manifold reactions and attitudes he knew that men and women held toward it. He had put several wads into the sack when it occurred to him to examine the denominations of the bills; he had already, without noticing it, put in many wads of one-dollar bills. Aw, shucks, he said in disgust. There were many wads of one-hundred-dollar bills. Yeah, take the big ones, he said, laughing. He dumped the one-dollar bills upon the floor and grabbed all the hundred-dollar wads he could find and swept them into the sack; then he raked in the rolls of coins with crooked fingers. He looked around; he had not heard a single noise since he had been in the office. He backed away and pushed the safe door and it swung shut with its heavy, slow weight.