“Because I was thinking about Burr major’s watch.”
“Oh, bother his watch!” said Mercer hastily. “I’m beginning to be glad that he has lost it. Now he won’t be always flourishing it in your face and seeming to say, ‘Poor fellow, I’m sorry you haven’t got a watch too.’”
“Well, you needn’t be so cross about it,” I said.
“Why needn’t I? One gets sick of his watch. There’s always been a fuss about it ever since he came back with it. It’s lost now, and a jolly good job too. Now we’ve heard the end of it. Old Eely’s watch is regularly wound up.”
Chapter Twenty Four.
But we had not heard the end of it, for the Doctor was so much annoyed that he sent Mr Hasnip on a private diplomatic visit to his brother schoolmaster at Hastings, to speak of the trouble we were in, and to ask if it were possible that the watch had been taken by mistake.
Mr Hasnip’s mission was as useless as the search made by the boys, who all stood round while the men took down the tent, so as to make sure that no strangers should be more successful than we were.
But the tent was carted away, poles, flags, and all, and then we resumed our search over the space where the erection had stood, even up to the hedge, and boys were sent over it to peer about in the ditch beyond.