'Now,' he said, 'I can tell old Foster I have picked up a locket and that I don't know whose it is, and I want to sell it. I will get my bicycle and ride into the town at once; but look here, old chap,' he added, taking my arm in quite a friendly way, 'you had better not wait here. Just hang about outside in the road, and don't let them see you if they come back first in the motor-car. I say, Jacintha, it will look better if you come to Foster's too.'
'It's awfully good of you,' I answered as we all went down the slope. 'How much do you think I shall get?'
'I should think you might get twenty-five shillings,' said Dick, as if he knew all about it.
'I wish I might,' I cried.
'Well,' he insisted, 'you get into the road and keep dark a bit, and we will scorch into the town like anything.'
With that they both set off across the field while I scrambled through the gap in the hedge, and returned to my former position on the grassy side of the road, lying down and waiting expectantly to see Dick and Jacintha ride out through the gate; and with the prospect of obtaining possession of twenty-five shillings, it really began to seem as if the foundation of my fortune had been laid.
CHAPTER XV.
A very few minutes later Dick rode through the gate followed by Jacintha, who raised an arm as she turned to the right, pedalled up the slight hill, and soon disappeared as she began to descend on the other side. Rising to my feet I had waved my arm in return, and I was strolling about the grass beside the road, already impatient to see Dick and Jacintha returning and to learn the full extent of my wealth, when I heard a motor-car panting along the road.
A glance showed that it was driven by the man who had accompanied Jacintha that morning she spied me in the corn-field, and a few moments later he steered the car into his gate. It seemed a long time before I saw the head of Dick and then of his sister appear above the crest of the hill. Dick, in his eagerness to reach me, pedalled all the way down.