“What’s all this gooey slime!” wondered Paul, disgusted with the mess he got all over his hands as he tried to pull out a package.
As the boys delved deeper into the case and brought out boxes and stationery all patterned by red and blue and black ink which had soaken through from broken bottles, they found the horrid smelly jelly diluted by salt water, to have mixed in with everything else.
“Ah! the mystery’s solved!” cried Fred, lifting a broken carton of paste-powder from the case.
“Agh! It’s got ready-made in the ocean and spread itself wherever it was not wanted!” said Paul, with disgust.
“Lemme take care ob dat goo-case!” offered Mose. “Ah kin clean ’em all out in d’ mawnin’ an’ mebbe fin’ a heap of paper so’s Paul an’ Dudley kin write home every week, reg’lar!”
“All right—let Mose do it!” laughed Billy.
“But Ah’m tellin’ yo’ right heah—ef Ah see a nice pen-knife wid a white pearl han’le Ah sure will tek it fo’ pay!”
“Anything you find, Mose! Go as far as you like!” promised Fred.
Mose left the cutlery in kerosene over night thereby cleaning off the rust and polishing up the items. The paper and other passably good articles he cleaned off fairly well and kept them on hand for the children to use.
The last of the cases contained dire disappointment. The groceries therein were discovered to be utterly ruined—salt, sugar, cereals, coffee and other foodstuffs.