“How do you mean?”
Luke glanced round, as if searching for unseen listeners. His voice sank.
“I didn’t manage to get more than half-a-dozen words, as it might be, with the party in question——”
“How did you manage to get those?”
The dear man’s face assumed a crafty look.
“Well, it was a kind of accident, as it were; but that is neither here nor there. From what I’m told there’s a slap-up temple on the other side of the hill, what’s crammed with the offerings of the faithful. This here party’s been a good time in the neighbourhood, and through their thinking a lot of him, as I’ve said, they’ve brought him heaps and heaps of presents. It’s them he wants to take away with him.”
“If they’re his who’s to say him no?”
“Well, there’s a lot of other coves about the temple, and they won’t allow they are his. Anyhow, they’d raise hell-and-Tommy if they knew he thought of taking them to England.”
“I see. As I supposed at first, it’s a big steal you’re after.”
“It’s hardly fair to call it that, captain. The things are his. It’s only those other blokes’ cussed greediness.”