Even as he spoke Gerald rose to the surface, spitting water from his mouth. In his right hand he held an object which he flung on to the bank, and then crawled up himself. "There's your fish, Tod," he said, rolling on the grass to dry himself, "your hook caught in that cylinder, which had got wedged between two big stones. Look at it while I dress."
Tod handled the cylinder gingerly. It was made of tin, and had apparently been covered with brown paper, for the remains of this clung loose at either end from under splotches of red sealing-wax. Oddly enough, there was also a string tied to the cylinder, at the end of which dangled the remnant of a bladder. Evidently the bladder had borne up the somewhat heavy cylinder for a certain time, and then had burst, to drop it toward the big stones amid which it had been wedged when Tod's hook had caught it. "Look's like a parcel of dynamite," said Tod, in a nervous tone; "poachers fishing by night with dynamite, O Lord!"
Haskins, who was slipping on his socks and shoes, looked up. "It's been in the water a good time anyhow, judging from the rotten brown paper and that decayed bladder. There's no chance of an explosion. If you are afraid to open it chuck it over."
"No." Macandrew dropped on to the grass beside his friend. "We'll go to Kingdom Come together, if necessary. Lend me your knife!"
Between them, the young men prized off the lid of the cylinder, with some difficulty, for it fitted tightly. The contents proved to be as puzzling as the vessel itself, for Gerald drew out a moderately long roller covered with brown wax, and scored delicately with regular lines, almost invisible. There was nothing else in the cylinder but this roller, and Tod eyed it with wonderment. "What the deuce is it?" he asked, twirling it round.
Haskins pinched his nether lip and reflected. "It's a phonograph record," he ventured to suggest, "see the marking, Tod, and the wax, and here," he tilted the cylinder end uppermost, "there's a name engraved on the butt, plainly, for all the world to see."
"Jekle & Co.," read Tod, fitting in his eye-glass to see clearly. "H'm! I never heard of the firm."
"That's not improbable: your knowledge of many things being limited."
"Oh, come now. Did you ever hear of the firm your own conceited self?"
"No. But it's a firm that makes phonographs anyhow." Gerald slipped the treasure trove into his pocket. "We'll take this back to the inn, and see what it means."