"Who put them in, Mrs. Shelfer, and how much is it for?"
"Oh, it's one of Charley's bills or notes, of course. Quinlan holds it, him as keeps "the little dust-pan," down Maiden Lane, and Charley says that all he got for it was ten shillings and a waggon-load of water-cresses. Now they'll be here directly, Miss, with you to keep the dog in. Excuse me, Miss, I see you have got one of them new wide things as go all round and up--capital things, I must have one before they come again. And could you manage to sit upon the sofa, Miss, and the three best chairs in your petticoat, with the tea-poy on your lap?"
"What on earth do you mean, Mrs. Shelfer?"
"Why, Miss, they can't lay hold of any article in use, I believe, and you have got so much room in your things."
"Do you suppose I intend to let them come here, for a moment? Now let me look at my bedroom. Come, Judy."
"Oh, Miss, they did have such a hunt here for Charley's double-barrel gun; a regular beauty it is, and that big rogue Quinlan is after it. They know it all round this neighbourhood, it was made by a famous maker, Joe something, I b'lieve, and the best he ever made; it was poor Miss Minto's brother's; and they shan't have it, not one of 'em. I'd sooner shoot them with it. I keeps it always in the safest place I knows on, and twice a year I see that it don't get rusty."
"What safe place do you keep it in?"
She put her little mouth up to my ear, and her little hand up to her mouth, and whispered--
"At the broker's, Miss, in Barbican. He has had it now six years. It's in for a quarter its value, but that's all the better for me: I have less to pay for keeping it, and I carries the ticket night and day in my bosom. And do you know, my good friend, they thought they had got it just now; they got a key that fitted that box of yours, that you always locked so carefully, and they made sure that was it; ha, ha, how I laughed at them when they opened it!"
"What! have they dared to open my mahogany box?" It was the repository of my precious relics.