without attracting
_some_ attention. Besides, he doubted whether he were strong enough to
dig it up, even if he could do so unobserved. He had not thought of this
when he had put the gold there in that other life. He was so much
stronger then. He sighed.

"Got the 'ump, mate?" asked Beale, with his mouth full.

"No, I was just a-thinkin'."

"We'd best buy the sticks first thing," said Beale; "it's a cruel world.
'No sticks, no trust' is the landlord's motto."

Do you want to know what sticks they bought? I will tell you. They
bought a rusty old bedstead, very big, with laths that hung loose like a
hammock, and all its knobs gone and only bare screws sticking up
spikily. Also a flock mattress and pillows of a dull dust color to go on
the bed, and some blankets and sheets, all matching the mattress to a
shade. They bought a table and two chairs, and a kitchen fender with a
round steel moon--only it was very rusty--and a hand-bowl for the sink,
and a small zinc bath, "to wash your shirt in," said Mr. Beale. Four
plates, two cups and saucers, two each of knives, forks, and spoons, a
tin teapot, a quart jug, a pail, a bit of Kidderminster carpet, half a
pound of yellow soap, a scrubbing-brush and broom, two towels, a
kettle, a saucepan and a baking-dish, and a pint of paraffin. Also there
was a tin lamp to hang on the wall with a dazzling crinkled tin
reflector. This was the only thing that was new, and it cost tenpence
halfpenny. All the rest of the things together cost twenty-six shillings
and sevenpence halfpenny, and I think they were cheap.

But they seemed very poor and very little of them when they were dumped
down in the front room. The bed especially looked far from its best--a
mere heap of loose iron.

"And we ain't got our droring-room suit, neither," said Mr. Beale.
"Lady's and gent's easy-chairs, four hoccasionals, pianner, and foomed
oak booreau."

"Curtains," said Dickie--"white curtains for the parlor and short blinds
everywhere else. I'll go and get 'em while you clean the winders. That
old shirt of mine. It won't hang through another washing. Clean 'em with
that."

"You don't give your orders, neither," said Beale contentedly.

The curtains and a penn'orth of tacks, a hammer borrowed from a
neighbor, and an hour's cheerful work completed the fortification of the
Englishman's house against the inquisitiveness of passers-by. But the
landlord frowned anxiously as he went past the house.

"Don't li