oung woman who controls the sale of
miscellaneous goods was alert and smiling behind her counter. Whatever
Crossan might be doing she at all events was attending to her
business. Godfrey took no notice of her. He led me through the shop to
the yard behind it. He pushed open the door of one of the outhouses.

"That door ought to be locked," he said.

This was true. I was somewhat surprised to find it open.

"I forced the lock this morning," said Godfrey, "with a screw driver."

"In that case," I said, "you can hardly blame Crossan for its being
open. Why did you do it?"

"I wanted to see what he had inside," said Godfrey, "and I wanted you
to see."

There was a good deal inside. In fact the outhouse, a large building,
was filled from floor to ceiling with packing-cases, some of them very
large indeed. Godfrey pointed to a small one near the door.

"Just lift that up, will you, Excellency?" said Godfrey.

"No, I won't. Why should I? I'm not a railway porter, and it looks
heavy."

"It is heavy. Just watch me for a moment if you don't want to lift it
yourself."

Godfrey with evident difficulty lifted the packing-case, staggered a
few steps with it and then set it down. The packing-case may have been
heavy but it was quite small. It seemed to me that Godfrey was making
a rather pitiful exhibition of his physical feebleness.

"You ought to do things with dumb bells," I said. "The muscles of your
arms are evidently quite soft."

Godfrey took no notice of the taunt. He was in a state of tremendous
moral earnestness.

"I want your permission to open these cases," he said.

"I won't give you any such permission," I said. "How can I? They're
not my packing-cases."

Godfrey argued with me for quite a long time, but I remained firm. For
some reason which I could not understand, Godfrey was unwilling to
open the packing-cases without permission from somebody. I should have
supposed that having already forced a door he would not have boggled
at the lid of a packing-case; but he did. He evidently had some vague
idea that the law takes a more serious view of smashing packing-cases
than it does of housebreaking. He may have been right. But my record
so far was clear. I had not forced the lock of the door.

"What do you suppose is in those cases?" said Godfrey.

"Artificial manure," I said.

Our store does a large business in artificial manure. It generally
comes to us in sacks, but there is no reason why it should