"Here, slow down, Jim—that's enough! Got any matches in your pocket? Good! A stump of a candle, too? Better still! Stick it in the neck of that old beer-bottle—right-o! Now, just you lean up against the window to keep the draught off, while I make a light. Don't move from there, Jim. I want to see what's under these musical floor-boards of yours."
Shielding the flickering candle with his body, he examined the boards, and immediately saw that they had been fastened down with new nails. They seemed loose, but not loose enough to be prized up by his pen-knife, the larger blade of which snapped off when he tried his luck with it.
"Bother!" he exclaimed. "The little blade's no use. Got a knife of any sort on you, Jim?"
Jim produced a huge clasp-knife, containing a blade as strong as a file.
"T'coastguard gave me this," he chuckled. "Ah cuts me baccy wi' it. Catch!"
Such an instrument was as good as a carpenter's tool to Dick. Speedily he had raised one of the boards, and for the moment dropped it again in sheer astonishment, so amazing was the discovery which his peering eyes made. In the light of the candle he had seen coins and medals and bric-a-brac, jumbled hastily together as though they had been poured there from a sack.
Quickly regaining his control, he forced up another and yet another of the boards, with the revelation of precious curios in each case.
"Jumping crackers! Here we have the headmaster's missing collection, or I'm a Dutchman. Jim, don't stand grinning there like an ape. Come over here and sit on these boards until I return. I'm going to Moston as fast as I can gallop, and I'll get back in quick-sticks. Don't you dare to move from here, Jim. Smoke your pipe, and I'll buy you some more baccy later on—packets of it. You're sure you can stick it here by yourself?"
