Greatly excited, he tried to push or turn it, but couldn’t move it.
“Anyway, we’re getting warm,” he cried, and his glowing face corroborated his words.
The boys took turns in working at the stubborn spring, trying with forceps and pincers to move it, until at last something seemed to give way, and the whole front of the door jamb fell out as one panel.
Behind it was a series of small pigeon holes one above the other, all filled with neatly piled papers.
Though yellow with age, the papers were carefully folded, labelled, and dated.
“Patty!” cried Mabel, as she embraced her friend, “you’ve found our fortune for us!”
“Don’t be too sure,” said Patty, laughing, and almost crying at the same time, so excited was she. “Your Uncle Marmaduke was of such uncertain ways I shouldn’t wonder if these were merely more files of his immortal verse.”
“They’re bills,” declared Sinclair, as he ran over a packet he took from a shelf.
“Let’s look them all over systematically,” said Bob. “Let’s all sit round the table, and one of us read out what the paper is about. Then if we come to anything important, we’ll all know it at once.”
This plan was adopted, and Sinclair, as the oldest, was chosen to read. He sat at the head of the long library table, and the others were at either side.