“I had to come in about some oats,” he explained. And then the Squire told him of our visit to the place, and the sergeant’s opinion about the advertisement.
“Cripp’s wrong,” said Coney, decisively. “Not advertise the earring!—why, it is the first step that ought to be taken.”
“Well, so I thought,” said the pater.
“The thing’s not obliged to have been stolen, Squire; it may have been dropped out of the ear in the road, and picked up by some one. The offering of a reward might bring it back again.”
“And I’ll be shot if I don’t do it,” exclaimed the pater. “I can see as far through a millstone as Cripp can.”
Turning into the Hare and Hounds, which was old Coney’s inn, they sat down at a table, called for pen and ink, and began to draw out an advertisement between them. “Lost! An earring of great value, pink topaz and diamonds,” wrote the Squire on a leaf of his pocket-book; and when he had got as far as that he looked up.
“Johnny, you go over to Eaton’s for a sheet or two of writing-paper. We’ll have it in all three of the newspapers. And look here, lad—you can run for the pills at the same time. Take care of the street slides. I nearly came down on one just now, you know.”
When I got back with the paper and pills, the advertisement was finished. It concluded with an offer of £5 reward. Applications to be made to Mr. Sergeant Cripp, or to Squire Todhetley of Crabb Cot. And, leaving it at the offices of the Herald, Journal, and Chronicle, we returned home. It would appear on the next day, Saturday; to the edification, no doubt, of Sergeant Cripp.
“Any news of the earring?” was the Squire’s first question when we got in.
No, there was no news of it, Mrs. Todhetley answered. And she had sent Luke Macintosh over to the little hamlet, Islip; who reported when he came back that there was no Mrs. Nutt, or Nutten, known there.