"It's certainly coming off!" she cried with enthusiasm. "Oh, look! There is a mark like a head, and some writing, and—it looks like—why—why——!"
She held the coin up critically, and her face fell; as well it might, for when the dirt was cleaned away, there appeared the unmistakable profile of Queen Victoria, while on the other side was the familiar figure of Britannia and the remains of the words "Half Penny"!
"Dick!" cried Cathy with sudden enlightenment.
But the boys were doubled up in such convulsions of jubilant mirth that it was a few moments before they could gasp out any remarks.
"Done you, old girl, for once!" spluttered George.
"Oh! I really didn't think you'd be taken in by such an easy fake!" shrieked Edward.
"Made it ourselves," explained Dick, between bursts of chuckles. "We modelled it in clay, after the pattern of those pictures in the mater's antiquarian book, and baked it in the oven. Then we crumbled the top away, and stained the bottom with iron-water, and filled it with pigs' bones and all the oldest coppers we could muster. We didn't bury it too deep, because we knew you'd never fag to dig half the mound away. I dare say the place was soft! No doubt a rabbit had been burrowing there! Oh, I say! I feel quite weak with laughing!"
Cathy and I bore our chaffing with the best grace we could.
"It was really rather clever of them," said Cathy. "Of course it's a dreadful sell, but we might find something genuine some day; only the next time we mean to go hunting for antiquities we won't tell the boys beforehand!"
All the same the affair rankled in our minds, and we came to the conclusion that if we could possibly seize an opportunity we should like to play a trick upon these determined practical jokers, so as to pay them back to some extent in their own coin. It was rather difficult to hit upon anything fresh, Cathy scorning such stale devices as apple-pie beds or stitched-up trousers.