“Oh! 'bout so-by-so.” Mr. Brisher indicated a moderate-sized trunk.
“FULL?” said I.
“Full up of silver coins—'arf-crowns, I believe.”
“Why!” I cried, “that would mean—hundreds of pounds.”
“Thousands,” said Mr. Brisher, in a sort of sad calm. “I calc'lated it out.”
“But how did they get there?”
“All I know is what I found. What I thought at the time was this. The chap who'd owned the 'ouse before 'er father 'd been a regular slap-up burglar. What you'd call a 'igh-class criminal. Used to drive 'is trap—like Peace did.” Mr. Brisher meditated on the difficulties of narration and embarked on a complicated parenthesis. “I don't know if I told you it'd been a burglar's 'ouse before it was my girl's father's, and I knew 'e'd robbed a mail train once, I did know that. It seemed to me—”
“That's very likely,” I said. “But what did you do?”
“Sweated,” said Mr. Brisher. “Regular run orf me. All that morning,” said Mr. Brisher, “I was at it, pretending to make that rockery and wondering what I should do. I'd 'ave told 'er father p'r'aps, only I was doubtful of 'is honesty—I was afraid he might rob me of it like, and give it up to the authorities—and besides, considering I was marrying into the family, I thought it would be nicer like if it came through me. Put me on a better footing, so to speak. Well, I 'ad three days before me left of my 'olidays, so there wasn't no hurry, so I covered it up and went on digging, and tried to puzzle out 'ow I was to make sure of it. Only I couldn't.
“I thought,” said Mr. Brisher, “AND I thought. Once I got regular doubtful whether I'd seen it or not, and went down to it and 'ad it uncovered again, just as her ma came out to 'ang up a bit of washin' she'd done. Jumps again! Afterwards I was just thinking I'd 'ave another go at it, when Jane comes to tell me dinner was ready. 'You'll want it,' she said, 'seeing all the 'ole you've dug.'