“I have just something to do first,” said I, as I laid down the parcel, (retaining the bundle of hay.) “Mrs Walker, tavern-keeper, Smith’s Close, Grassmarket, presents her compliments to Mr Moxey, and begs to send him two dozen and a half of fresh eggs from Arbroath.”
“Eggs to me! are you mad?” But beginning to smell, as he suspected, a trick, he opened the towel, and saw before him Mr C——’s thirty watches.
“Where got?” he asked.
“Where, but in Mrs Walker’s tavern, where they naturally fell to be.”
“And unknown to her?”
“Close up to the wall beneath the bed, and all, like eggs, enclosed in this hay.”
“I’ll never interfere with your searches again,” he added, laughing. “I’ll write this moment, and make C—— a happy man.”
“Yes,” said I; “and tell him, that, though I’m a safe enough man, I’m not ‘a patent safe.’ ”
“We’ve got all.”
“No, ‘A WANT SPOILS PERFECTION,’ ” said I. “There’s one awanting, and without that the rest are nothing.”