“Well, I won’t say forger, for he mayn’t a made the things. But for sure he ha’ been engaged in passin’ them off.”
“Passin’ what off!”
“Them!” rejoins Joe, drawing a little canvas bag out of his pocket, and spilling its contents upon the table—over a score of coins to all appearance half-crown pieces.
“Counterfeits—every one o’ ’em!” he adds, as the other sits staring at them in surprise.
“Where did you find them?” asks Jack.
“In the corner o’ an old cubbord. Furbishin’ up the place, I comed across them—besides a goodish grist o’ other kewrosities. What would ye think o’ my predecessor here bein’ a burglar as well as smasher?”
“I wouldn’t think that noways strange neyther. As I’ve sayed already, I b’lieve Dick Dempsey to be a man who’d not mind takin’ a hand at any mortal thing, howsomever bad. Burglary, or even worse, if it wor made worth his while. But what led ye to think he ha’ been also in the housebreaking line?”
“These!” answers the old boatman, producing another and larger bag, the more ponderous contents of which he spills out on the floor, not the table; as he does so exclaiming, “Theere be a lot o’ oddities! A complete set o’ burglar’s tools—far as I can understand them.”
And so are they, jemmies, cold chisels, skeleton keys—in short, every implement of the cracksman’s calling.
“And ye found them in the cubbert too?”