“All right, doctor,” agreed Briggs, though Hal’s absence troubled him sore. “There’s only one thing I want you to do. Put my receipts in the safe.”
“What receipts?”
“For the cash I paid Squire Bean and for the money-order I sent the college.”
“Where are they?”
“In my wallet, there, in that inside coat-pocket,” answered Briggs, pointing to the big blue coat hung over a chair by the fire. “The combination of the safe is in that top drawer, on a slip of paper. You can open the safe easy enough.”
“All right, anything to please you,” grumbled the old doctor. “Where shall I put the receipts, captain?”
“In the cash-drawer. Inner drawer, top, right.”
Filhiol located the drawer and dropped the precious receipts into it. His eyes, that could still see quite plainly by the fading, gray light of the stormy late afternoon, descried a few bills in the drawer.
“It’s been a terrible expense to you, captain,” said he with the license of long years of acquaintanceship. “Down a bit on the cash now, eh?”
“Yes, doctor, down a bit. Plims’l-mark’s under water this time. But I’m not foundering just yet. There’s still seven hundred and fifty or so.”