"Lofty grandmother!" said Acton impatiently.
"What else have you got ?"
"Well, here's a wire puzzle, only I think a bit of it's lost, and the clasp of a cricket belt, and old Dick Rodman's chessboard and some of the men, and some stuff for chilblains, and—"
"Oh, dry up!" interrupted Acton; "what bosh! Who d'you expect would buy any of that rubbish? Look here, we'll give you till after dinner, and unless you find something sensible by then, we shall come and hunt for ourselves."
"That's just like Mug," said Jack Vance to Diggory, as the group of boys slowly dispersed; "he's always doing something stupid. But I suppose as we made that alliance, we ought to try to help the beggar somehow."
They followed their unfortunate comrade to his desk, which when opened displayed a perfect chaos of ragged books, loose sheets of paper, broken pen-holders, pieces of string, battered cardboard boxes, and other rubbish.
"Look here, Mug, what have you got to sell? you'll have to fork out something."
"I don't know," returned the other mournfully, stirring up the contents of the desk as though he were making a Christmas pudding. "I've got nothing, except—well, there's this book of Poe's, 'Tales of Adventure, Mystery, and Imagination,' and my clasp-knife; and perhaps some one would buy these fret-saw patterns or this dog-chain."
He turned out two or three more small articles and laid them on the form.
"Are there any of these things you particularly wish to keep?" asked Diggory; "because, if so, Vance and I'll bid for them, and then you can buy them back from us again when you've got some more money."