"It would be splendid," gasped David. "Do you think he would?"

"I say," called out Ambrose, without replying to this, as they got near
to the others, "guess what we've found."

"A skull," said Nancy at once, mentioning the thing which the boys
wanted most for their museum.

"How could it be a skull, silly?" said Ambrose scornfully, "when I'm
holding it inside my hand?"

More guesses followed, but in vain, and at last the Roman snail was
displayed to the wondering gaze of Pennie and Nancy. Not that they had
any part or lot in matters concerning the museum. That belonged to the
boys alone, and was jealously guarded as their very own. Ever since
Ambrose had been with his father to the museum at Nearminster he and
David had made up their minds to have one, and had begun with great
fervour to collect objects for it. Other interests, however, had come
in the way, and the museum languished until one day Mrs Hawthorne had
offered them a tiny empty room at the top of the house for their own.
It was not much bigger than a cupboard, and had a very sloping roof, but
to the boys it seemed a palace.

What a place for the museum! They at once set to work to put up
shelves, to write labels, and to give it as much as possible the
appearance of the one at Nearminster. Ambrose hit upon an idea which
added a good deal to this. He printed the words "_To the Museum_" on
some cards, with an arrow to point the way, and when these were pasted
on the staircase wall they had a capital effect. But though it began to
have quite a business-like air, the museum was still woefully empty.
Even when spread out to their widest extent, it was impossible to make
three fossils, a few birds' eggs, and one dried snake's skin look
otherwise than meagre even in a small room. The boys arranged these
over and over again in different positions, and wrote very large labels
for them, but they were disturbed by the consciousness that it was not
an interesting collection, and that it must be increased before the 1st
of November. This would be their mother's birthday, and they then
intended to invite her to see the museum and to declare it open.

All this, therefore, made Rumborough Common, with its store of hidden
treasure, an unusually interesting place, and it was almost too
tantalising to be hurried past the camp with only a longing glance.
Ambrose especially, since his visit to the Nearminster museum, had been
fired with ambition to make a tho