There were twenty of them altogether, and some were piled upon the others as if they were building stones, till at last the men’s book had been signed, the money paid for carriage, and Uncle Joe, Uncle Dick, and I sat there alone staring at the chests and wondering at their appearance.
For they were battered, and bruised, and chipped away in splinters, so that they looked very old indeed, though, as my uncle told me, there was not one there more than five years old, though they might have been fifty.
Every one had painted upon it in large white letters:
“Dr Burnett, FZS, London,” and I wondered what FZS might mean. Then I noticed that the chests were all numbered, and I was longing intensely for them to be opened, when Uncle Dick, as I suppose I must call him now, made me start by crying out:
“Screw-driver!”
I jumped up and ran to Uncle Joe’s tool-box for the big screw-driver, and was back with it in a very short time, Uncle Dick laughing heartily as he saw my excitement.
“Thank you, Nat, that will do,” he said. “It will be nice and handy for me to-morrow morning.”
“Ha—ha—ha!” he laughed directly after, as he saw my blank disappointed face. “Did you think I was going to open the cases to-day, Nat?”
“I did hope so, sir,” I said stoutly.
“Then I will,” he cried, “for your being so frank. Now then, which shall it be?”