ss Oliver
objected. "Take our Emergency Fund--'Charles Pendarves Tresawna,
Esq., J.P., twenty-five guineas.'"

"I seem to remember that the Squire paid by cheque," said Mrs Polsue
drily.

"But the guineas must have been there, in the Bank. . . . Oh, I see!
You mean that a guinea being worth twenty-one shillings--"

"That's right: you're getting at it. Though I declare, Charity
Oliver, there are times when I don't know which is furthest behind
the times--your head, or the coquelicots you insist on wearing upon
it. But now I hope you'll admit I was right, and there's a mystery
about Nanjivell. Whether 'tis mixed up with his immorality or
separate I won't pretend to decide, or not at this stage."

"But anyway you can't make out a guinea-piece to be German,"
maintained Miss Oliver with a last show of obstinacy.

"I don't say 'yes' or 'no' to that just yet," Mrs Polsue replied.
"The newspapers tell us the Germans have been hoarding gold for a
very long time. But you mentioned the Bank a moment ago--or did I?
Never mind: it was a good suggestion anyway. Wait while I send
across for Mr Pamphlett."

"Why, to be sure," said Mr Pamphlett, "it's a guinea--a George the
Second guinea." He pushed back a corner of the cloth and rang the
coin on the table. "Sound . . . and not clipped at all. There's
always its intrinsic value, as we say: and one of these days it will
have an additional value as a curiosity. But as yet that is almost
negligible. Oddly enough--" He broke off, fumbled in his waistcoat
pocket, and produced a guinea almost precisely similar. Miss Oliver
gasped: it was so like a conjuring trick.

"Where did Miss Oliver get this one?" asked Mr Pamphlett, laying his
right forefinger upon the guinea on the table while still holding the
other displayed in the palm of his left hand.

"I got it," confessed Miss Oliver, "off that youngest child of
Samuel Penhaligon's, who told me it had been given him as a present
by Mr--by Nicholas Nanjivell."

"WHAT?"

She blanched, as Mr Pamphlett stared at her. "His eyes," as she
explained later, "were round in his head-round as gooseberries."

"Well, I suppose I oughtn't to have taken it from the child. . . .
But seeing that he didn't know its value, and there being something
of a mystery in the whole business--as Mary-Martha here will explain,
though she will have it that the man is a German spy--"

"Stuff and nonsense, ma'am! . . . I beg your pardon: you're