“Wha-at! But Polly said there wasn’t any cellar!”
“She doesn’t know any better. Look above you. See where the stairway went? The old chap must have torn it away and boarded the hole up; and bricked up the windows, too. It must have cost him a pretty penny to do all this!”
“What—what are you going to do with it?” asked George, pointing to the chest.
“Why, hand it over to the lawyers, whoever they are, I suppose,” answered Bob. “But first of all we’re going to take those bonds and dump them into the Widow’s lap. I always said I’d hand it all over to her, when I found it. I never thought I would find it, but I have—or Laurie has, because if he hadn’t noticed that the shelves were loose we never would—”
“Besides,” interrupted George, “she comes in for a share of the money. Come on, fellows! Let’s do it now! Gee, it will be some Christmas present!”
“Won’t it? Let’s each one take a package,” said Laurie. “We’ll leave everything just as it is for the lawyer folks. Come on!”
“Say, fellows, there’s an awfully funny smell down here,” observed George. “Sort of—sort of sweet, like—like violets or something. Notice it?”
“Yes, I noticed it before I got in here, though,” said Ned. “Wonder what it is.”
“Oh, places like this get to smelling funny after they’ve been shut up for a while,” said Bob. “And I guess this place hasn’t been opened for two years, eh?”
“Of course not; not since old Coventry died. Just the same, it’s a mighty funny odor.” And George sniffed again perplexedly. Laurie, who had withdrawn to the door, unconsciously placed a hand in one jacket pocket, where, within a crushed cardboard box, some fragments of glass were all that remained of Polly’s present! In prying open the lid of the chest he had brought the end of the crowbar against that pocket, and now the purchase was only a memory, albeit a fragrant one.