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I knew directly what she meant, but I looked very innocent. "If it was anything in the curiosity line, I might have," I answered. "You see the sort of things I deal in." I waved my hand round the place. "No," she said. "It wasn't a curiosity. It was an oak chest with brass corners. I think they call it a ditty-box." "A ditty-box," I said. "They're too common to be curious.
I'm darned if I like getting the freedom of the City of Cow Run sportin' such a pretty mug as this! How many more miles to this giddy burg, old thing?" Yorke grinned unfeelingly. "Hard on nine miles to go yet. We're about half way. Isch ga bibble! . . . open your ditty-box and sing! you blooming whip-poor-will." "A werry heart goes all the way, But a sad one tires in a mile a'; A "
"You make more good bargains than bad ones, I'll be bound," I asserted. "Yes," he agreed; "but it isn't so much that. The bad aren't very bad, as a rule; and some of the good are very good. That's where I get my profit." "What was the best bargain you ever made?" I asked. He filled his glass and pushed the decanter toward me. "The best bargain I ever made," he said, "was over a ditty-box."
He boasted that he didn't believe in banks and such things, and he'd got his money hidden where even his wife didn't know. And the conclusion I've come to is that those chaps believe it's in the ditty-box, and they mean to have it." "Ah!" I said. "We'll have something to say to that, Isaac! You told them we hadn't got it, of course." "Of course," he said; "and of course they didn't believe me!
We settled it that way. He wanted to get married, so I gave him a rise and let them have the rooms over the shop to live in; and there they are now." "And how do you reckon the profits yourself?" I asked. "Well," he said "in these last eight years I've cleared forty thousand pounds, though you wouldn't think it in this little shop. I reckon that I cleared a good bit more over that ditty-box.
"Being associated with your father," I said, "naturally you would. Perhaps if I don't come across the ditty-box, I might find something else of his that would do, eh?" "No-o," she said. "It wouldn't. You see we my mother and I aren't well off.
I put him off like the others. "Two Swedish sailors came in after the shutters were up, while the door was still open. They wanted a ditty-box of the identical description. I told them I'd look for it, same as I told the rest. You always brought me up not to close too soon with a customer who was keen on a thing." "Very good, Isaac," I said. "Very good! Go on!"
They'll look very nice when they're framed; and I make a good bit out of the frames, you see. Now about this ditty-box. I've got on the track of one that might turn out right; but there's a difficulty that I'd like to put to you. Suppose that there's no money in it, only a clue to where your father hid it. Wouldn't that be likely to be somewhere where you can't get at it?
He didn't beat about the bush, but said he wanted Captain Markby's ditty-box that we'd bought, and he'd give two pounds ten for it. I told him I wished I'd got it to sell, since he was so generous, but ditty-boxes weren't in my line. The others that Isaac had spoken of came in too.
I knew there must be a good deal more in it than appeared, but it's no use hurrying Isaac. He likes to tell things his own way. "I thought it might suit you to lock up your books and papers. That was all till the day before yesterday. Then a ginger-haired sailor came in. North countryman. Wanted a ditty-box, he said.
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