“Where’d you find that?” says Catty.
“I never saw it before. What is it?”
Rameses III came in with the coffee and heard what Mr. Browning said. “I found it,” says he. “’Twas under the seat of the starboard dinghy. Picked it out last night.”
“And we looked high and low for it,” says Catty.
“What is it?” says Mr. Browning.
“Mr. House’s document bag. When we were prisoners on the Porpoise, we hooked it and threw it aboard the Albatross.”
Then Mr. Browning did get excited. He jerked the case open and spilled out the things in it. One of them was a kind of a note book and he pounced on it with a yell.
“You can’t beat it,” says he. “You kids’ll be the death of me. Not only do you carry off the treasure right under the noses of fifty men, but you gobble onto the key to the cipher.”
“Honest?” says Catty.
“Honest Injun.”