He went across to the wash-hand stand.
"I was going to buy you a three-shilling box of chocolates, and yet not make our fund a penny the poorer!"
"Is it a riddle?"
He nodded.
"Give it up. It's too late to solve riddles."
He was rubbing at his cheek with a sponge.
"I won it. I, even I, Denis, the twin of Nell, won it in a sweep-stake. Now see how businesslike I've grown, Nell. I pulled off six bob really, but it was a shilling to enter each time—that's two bob—and the time I lost, another, so I reckon I won three altogether. See?"
"What a beautifully easy way to get three shillings!"
"I might have lost two instead. Seems to me there's an idea somewhere there, Nell—work it on a bigger scale, and you'd have me turning those beggars out of Kilbrannan."
"But suppose you lost?"