Jack put the vessel on the ground and broke it neatly in two pieces. Inside was a small tin box, hardly larger than the envelope which Jack drew forth from it after prising it open.
"Another sickening disappointment?" I gasped.
"I don't know," said Jack; "read it, and see."
"I can't," I said; "open it and read it to me; if it's another sell, I shall curse Clutterbuck and die."
Jack—looking pale and thin—broke the seal of the envelope. I saw the colour rush back to his face.
"What is it, in Heaven's name?" I said; "don't madden me!"
"All right this time, old boy," cried Jack, handing me the paper with flashing eyes—"a cheque to bearer."
It was so. A cheque for ninety-seven thousand odd pounds!
I do not know what I did. Jack, who sometimes tells the truth, says that I deliberately stood on my head on the very top of the pile of earth we had dug out of the hole, and that Ginger licked my face just as I had reached the third bar of the National Anthem (performed then positively for the first time in that position!) and brought me down with a run. Personally I do not recollect the episode.
The cheque was duly paid, the bank manager gravely smiling as I handed it to him in his private room. He was, I found, partially in the secret. He asked for, and I gave him, a short account of my adventures, when he was kind enough to express the opinion that I deserved the money.