"I don't want to hear anything you can say," growled 'Bias.
"Oh, yes, you do! . . . I reckoned as you'd be down here, first thing after breakfast, sarchin' for them papers we talked about."
"Did you, now?"
"And I tried to catch you afore you started; but you'd breakfasted early. . . . Well, the long and short is, they're not lost after all!" Cai produced the bundle triumphantly.
"Eh! Where did you find 'em?" asked Fancy, while 'Bias took the parcel without a word of thanks, glanced at it carelessly, and set it down on the little round table beside the bed.
"In my strong-box. . . . There was two parcels, pretty much alike, on the top shelf of the safe yonder, and I must have taken 'Bias's by mistake. I'm glad, anyway," he went on, turning with moist eyes upon 'Bias, who appeared to have lost interest in the conversation. "I'm glad, anyway, t'have eased your mind so soon, let alone to have cut short your sarchin' which must ha' been painful enough—in a house o' sickness."
"Who was sarchin'?" asked 'Bias curtly. "Not me."
"And that's true enough," corroborated Fancy. "Why, Cap'n Hunken has never mentioned the papers! I guessed as you hadn' told him they was missin'."
"Eh? . . . I thought—I made sure, by his startin' down here so early—"
"Not a word of any papers did he mention," said Fancy. "He just come early to sit an' keep master company, havin' a notion that his poor old mind takes comfort from it somehow. Seven hours he sat here yesterday, an' never so much as a pipe of tobacco the whole time. Doctor said as a bit o' tobacco-smoke wouldn' do any harm in the room: but Cap'n Hunken allows as he'll be on the safe side."