Ruth Earp went home, and Denry
with them. Llandudno was just settling into its winter sleep, and
Denry's rather complex affairs had all been put in order. Though the
others showed a certain lassitude, he himself was hilarious. Among his
insignificant luggage was a new hat-box, which proved to be the origin
of much gaiety.

"Just take this, will you?" he said to a porter on the platform at
Llandudno Station, and held out the new hat-box with an air of calm. The
porter innocently took it, and then, as the hat-box nearly jerked his
arm out of the socket, gave vent to his astonishment after the manner of
porters.

"By gum, mister!" said he, "that's heavy!"

It, in fact, weighed nearly two stone.

"Yes," said Denry, "it's full of sovereigns, of course."

And everybody laughed.

At Crewe, where they had to change, and again at Knype and at Bursley,
he produced astonishment in porters by concealing the effort with which
he handed them the hat-box, as though its weight was ten ounces. And
each time he made the same witticism about sovereigns.

"What _have_ you got in that hat-box?" Ruth asked.

"Don't I tell you?" said Denry, laughing. "Sovereigns!"

Lastly, he performed the same trick on his mother. Mrs Machin was
working, as usual, in the cottage in Brougham Street. Perhaps the notion
of going to Llandudno for a change had not occurred to her. In any case,
her presence had been necessary in Bursley, for she had frequently
collected Denry's rents for him, and collected them very well. Denry was
glad to see her again, and she was glad to see him, but they concealed
their feelings as much as possible. When he basely handed her the
hat-box she dropped it, and roundly informed him that she was not going
to have any of his pranks.

After tea, whose savouriness he enjoyed quite as much as his own state
dinner, he gave her a key and asked her to open the hat-box, which he
had placed on a chair.

"What is there in it?"

"A lot of jolly fine pebbles that I've been collecting on the beach," he
said.

She got the hat-box on to her knee, and unlocked it, and came to a thick
cloth, which she partly withdrew, and then there was a scream from Mrs
Machin, and the hat-box rolled with a terrific crash to the tiled floor,
and she was ankle-deep in sovereigns. She could see sovereigns running
about all over the parlour. Gradually even the most active sovereigns
decided to lie down and be quiet, and a great silence ensued. Denry'