“But this will do.”
“Nay, nay, nay; it won’t do,” cried the old man peevishly. “Give it to me.”
The doctor handed back the skull, and the old man hastily replaced it in the coffer, hesitated a few moments, and then brought out another skull.
“Ah! that’s right,” cried the doctor eagerly; “the very thing. How much?”
“Nay, nay, nay; I’m not going to commit sackerlidge and dessercation. I can’t sell it.”
“But you are not going to give it to me?”
“Nay; I only thought as you might put anything you like on the chimbley-piece.”
“I see,” said the doctor, smiling, and placing a small gold coin there, the old man watching eagerly the while. “But I say, Moredock, how many more have you got in that chest?”
“Got?—there?” said the old man suspiciously. “Oh! only them two. Nothing more—nothing more.” But the next instant, as if won over to confidence in his visitor, or feeling bound to trust him, he screwed up his face in a strange leering way and opened the coffer wide.
“You may look in,” he said. “You’re a doctor, and won’t tell. They’re for the doctors.”