“In the sink? You mean BY the sink, don't you, Primmie?”
“No, I don't, I mean IN it. You'd forgot your watch and Miss Martha she sent me up to your room after it. I fetched it down to you and you and her was talkin' in the kitchen and you was washin' your hands in the sink basin. Don't you remember you was?”
“Was I? I—I presume I was if you say so. Really I—I have forgotten.”
“Course you have. And you forgot your watch, too. Left it layin' right alongside that tin washbasin full of soapsuds. 'Twas a mercy you didn't empty out the suds on top of it. Well, I snaked it out of the sink and chased out the door to give it to you and you was halfway to the lighthouse and I couldn't make you hear to save my soul. 'Twas then I noticed that charm thing. That's an awful funny kind of thing, Mr. Bangs. There's a—a bug on it, ain't there?”
“Why—ah—yes, Primmie. That charm is a very old scarab.”
“Hey? A what? I told Miss Martha it looked for all the world like a pertater bug.”
Galusha smiled. He held out the charm for her inspection.
“I have had that for a long time,” he said. “It is a—ah—souvenir of my first Egyptian expedition. The scarab is a rather rare example. I found it myself at Saqqarah, in a tomb. It is a scarab of the Vth Dynasty.”
“Hey? Die—what?”
“The Vth Dynasty; that is the way we classify Egyptian—ah—relics, by dynasties, you know. The Vth Dynasty was about six thousand years ago.”