in presents for my kind visitors. Bless you; a very trifle pleased them. It is different now. I don't spend a penny myself. The money is spent for me. I don't keep the key of my cashbox. Admonition has it."
"Then," said Mehalah, rising from her seat, "all is over with us. My mother, your cousin, will in her old age be cast destitute into the world. But, if you really wish to help her, be a man, use your authority, and do what you choose with your own."
"Bless me!" exclaimed Mr. Pettican, touching his brow with his trembling hand, "I will be a man. Am I not a man? If I don't exert my authority, people will say I am in my dotage. I—I—in my flower and cream of my age—in the dotage! Go, Me" he looked in his notebook, "Mehalah, fetch me my cashbox, it is in the bedroom cupboard upstairs, on the right, over this. Bring the box down. Stay, though! Before you come down just feel in my wife's old dress pocket. She may have forgotten to take her keys width her to the Regatta. It is just possible."
"I cannot do that."
"Well, no, perhaps you had better not. Do you happen to have a bunch of keys with you?"
"No, sir."
"Well, never mind. Bring me the case. I will be a man. I will show the world I am not in my dotage. I will be of the masculine gender, dative case, if it pleases me, and Admonition may lump it if she don't like it."
Mehalah obeyed. She found the box, which was of iron, brought it downstairs, and placed it on the table by Mr. Pettican. "I've been turning the matter over in my mind," said he, "and I see a very happy way out of it without a row. Give me the poker. You will find a cold chisel in that drawer.
"I will tell you my idea. Whilst I am left here all alone, burglars have broken into the house, knowing my helpless condition, and have ransacked the place, found my cashbox and broken it open." He chuckled and rubbed his hands. "I shall be able accurately to describe the ruffians. One has a black moustache, and the other a red beard, and they look like foreigners and speak a Dutch jargon."
