“What kind o’ thing, Pym?” inquired Sir Hector.
“A snuff-box,” answered the painter, opening a drawer and turning over a collection of small fossils, flint arrow-heads, and the like.
“A gowd snuff-box, Pym?”
“Nay, ’twas of horn—a poor thing! Ah, here ’tis!” And he held out a clumsy horn snuff-box of battered and villainous appearance. Sir John took it, turned it this way and that, opened and sniffed delicately at its empty interior, and finally carrying it to the light, fell to studying it anew.
“Now, Pym man,” said Sir Hector, “if yon had been gold or enamel, or even siller, it might perchance justify your suspeecions; but whaur’s the man o’ quality would carry a thing the like o’ that?”
“There, sir,” answered the painter dogmatically, “there I take issue with ye. If that box be evidence, which I deny, mark ye—’tis precisely the kind o’ thing your man o’ quality would purposefully leave that its very poverty might set inquiring minds on a false scent. I further maintain, sir, that——”
“Nay, Sir Hector,” laughed Mistress Pym, leaning in at the open lattice at this moment, her hands full of fresh-gathered flowers, “do but take father’s side o’ the question and he will immediately take yours to keep the argument a-going.”
“Child,” quoth the painter, sternly grim, “I smell your bread a-burning!”
“Sir,” she answered, throwing a flower at him, “thou’rt mighty sharp-nosed this morning, for ’tis not yet in the oven!”
“An’ there’s for ye, man!” chuckled Sir Hector as she jingled away once more.