r. Berge, "if that ain't
the same writing as these texts!"

"By gad, but I believe you are right," assented Mr. Carlyle. "Well,
why not look inside?"

The attendant, from his stooping posture, took the verdict of the ring
of faces and in a trice tugged open the two buckles. The central
fastening was not locked, and yielded to a touch. The flannel shirt,
the weird collar and a few other garments in the nature of a
"top-dressing" were flung out and John's hand plunged deeper....

Harry the Actor had lived up to his dramatic instinct. Nothing was
wrapped up; nay, the rich booty had been deliberately opened out and
displayed, as it were, so that the overturning of the bag, when John
the keybearer in an access of riotous extravagance lifted it up and
strewed its contents broadcast on the floor, was like the looting of a
smuggler's den, or the realization of a speculator's dream, or the
bursting of an Aladdin's cave, or something incredibly lavish and
bizarre. Bank-notes fluttered down and lay about in all directions,
relays of sovereigns rolled away like so much dross, bonds and scrip
for thousands and tens of thousands clogged the downpouring stream of
jewellery and unset gems. A yellow stone the size of a four-pound
weight and twice as heavy dropped plump upon the canon's toes and sent
him hopping and grimacing to the wall. A ruby-hilted kris cut across
the manager's wrist as he strove to arrest the splendid rout. Still
the miraculous cornucopia deluged the ground, with its pattering,
ringing, bumping, crinkling, rolling, fluttering produce until, like
the final tableau of some spectacular ballet, it ended with a golden
rain that masked the details of the heap beneath a glittering veil of
yellow sand.

"My dust!" gasped Draycott.

"My fivers, by golly!" ejaculated the bookmaker, initiating a plunge
among the spoil.

"My Japanese bonds, coupons and all, and--yes, even the manuscript of
my work on 'Polyphyletic Bridal Customs among the mid-Pleistocene Cave
Men.' Hah!" Something approaching a cachinnation of delight closed the
professor's contribution to the pandemonium, and eyewitnesses
afterwards declared that for a moment the dignified scientist stood on
one foot in the opening movement of a can-can.

"My wife's diamonds, thank heaven!" cried Sir Benjamin, with the air
of a schoolboy who was very well out of a swishing.

"But what does it mean?" demanded the bewildered canon. "Here are my
family heirlooms--a few