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"My dear" Nicky-Nan spread out his hands "not if you was a thief an' had really stole it, I wouldn'. But behavin', as you have, like an angel slap out o' Heaven " He staggered up and confronted Mr Pamphlett. "Here, you clear out o' this!" he threatened, pointing to the door. "You're done, my billies. Tuck your tails atween your legs an' march!"
Across the room Rat-it-all, on hands and knees, had pulled open the door of the fatal cupboard, and had thrust in head and shoulders, exploring. "There's a loose piece of flooring here, Mr Pamphlett. New, by the looks of it." There was a sound of boards being shaken and thrown together in a heap. "Queer old cache here below. . . . Steady, now . . . wait till I turn my bull's-eye on it!
"A moment, if you please," put in Mr Pamphlett suavely. "You will allow that, not being accustomed to little girls and not knowing therefore how a pert child should properly be chastised and brought to book, I have been uncommonly patient with this one.
"Struck your head, did you? fallin' against the cupboard, when they was huntin' for your money: which they can't deny. Did you want Mr Pamphlett to find your money?" "Him?" said Nicky-Nan bitterly. "Him? as I wouldn' trust not ha'f so far as a man could fling him by his eyebrows!"
Still had Nicky-Nan known it Mr Pamphlett, like many another bank manager, had been caught and thrown in a heap by the sudden swoop of War. Over the telephone wires he had been in agitated converse all day with his superiors, who had at length managed to explain to him the working of the financial Moratorium.
She said she'd seen the doctor calling at your house almost every day with a little black bag, and made sure there must have been an operation. She mistook Mr Pamphlett for the doctor, if you ever heard tell of such simple-mindedness." "And the awkward part of it was," Miss Oliver continued in a musing voice, searching her memory "the awkward part was, poor Mrs Pamphlett's being present."
Her face blanched as she looked around the bedroom; at Builder Gilbert, standing, wash-jug in hand; at Mr Pamphlett, kneeling, examining the cupboard; at Policeman Rat-it-all, kneeling also, but on one knee, while on the other he supported Nicky-Nan's inert head and bathed a cut on the right temple, dipping a rag of a towel into the poor chipped basin on the ground beside him.
"The newspapers tell us the Germans have been hoarding gold for a very long time. But you mentioned the Bank a moment ago or did I? Never mind: it was a good suggestion anyway. Wait while I send across for Mr Pamphlett." "Why, to be sure," said Mr Pamphlett, "it's a guinea a George the Second guinea." He pushed back a corner of the cloth and rang the coin on the table.
But never you fret: I'm upsides with Pamphlett. This is my house, ma'am: an' here I bide till it pleases me to quit." "O-oh!" sighed Mrs Penhaligon dejectedly, "then it puts me in a very awkward position, if you don't mind my sayin' so." "How is it awkward, ma'am?" asked Nicky-Nan, rubbing his unshaven chin with the point of the trowel. "Well, Mr Nanjivell, I dare say you meant it well enough.
The scattered coins he had seen by that one brief flash of the candle danced and multiplied themselves before his eyes like dots of fire in the darkness. Still he resolutely kept their numbers down to one hundred. A hundred pounds! . . . Why, that, or even fifty, meant all the difference in life to him. He could look Pamphlett in the face now.