"So help me!" Johnson was pensive and doubtful still "So help me! you couldn't have made all this up out of your head."
"Oh yes, I could. But I didn't. Now look here. It's the chance of your lifetime, Johnson! A quid for me, and a still tongue for you, and the job's done. Do you agree?"
"Oh, I agree right enough," said Johnson. "I agree. But if you're coming any of your larks "
"Can't you see he isn't?" Kathleen put in impatiently. "He's not a liar we none of us are."
"If you're not on, say so," said Gerald, "and I'll find another policeman with more sense."
"I could split about you being out all night," said Johnson.
"But you wouldn't be so ungentlemanly," said Mabel brightly. "Don't you be so unbelieving, when we're trying to do you a good turn."
"If I were you," Gerald advised, "I'd go to the place where the silver is, with two other men. You could make a nice little ambush in the wood-yard it's close there. And I'd have two or three more men up trees in the lane to wait for the motor-car."
"You ought to have been in the force, you ought," said Johnson admiringly; "but s'pose it was a hoax!"
"Well, then you'd have made an ass of yourself I don't suppose it ud be the first time," said Jimmy.