"Uncle," she protested, "I do wish you wouldn't be so silly. The idea of me sailing without my trunks! Why don't you ask me to sail without my head?"
"All right—all right!" he responded. "But don't snap mine off. Two second returns to Edinburgh, young man, and I'll thank ye to look slippy over it."
In the Edinburgh train he could scarcely refrain from laughing. And Helen, too, seemed more in a humour to accept the disappearance of five invaluable trunks, full of preciosities, as a facetious sally on the part of destiny.
He drew out a note-book which he always carried, and did mathematical calculations.
"That makes twenty-seven pounds eighteen and ninepence as ye owe me," he remarked.
"What? For railway tickets?"
"Railway tickets, tips, and that twenty-five pounds I lent ye. I'm making ye a present o' my fares, and dinner, and tea and so forth."
"Twenty-five pounds that you lent me!" she murmured.
"Yes," he said. "Tuesday morning, while I was at my cashbox."
"Oh, that!" she ejaculated. "I thought you were giving me that. I never thought you'd ask me for it again, uncle. I'd completely forgotten all about it."