with one
pocketful of rings and shirt-studs. It was quite a light pocketful,
but the jewellers in Paris could not match it without sending
specially to Africa, so that Lord Castlenorman had to borrow bone
shirt-studs.

Not even rumour whispered the name of Nuth. Were I to say that this
turned his head, there are those to whom the assertion would give
pain, for his associates hold that his astute judgment was unaffected
by circumstance. I will say, therefore, that it spurred his genius to
plan what no burglar had ever planned before. It was nothing less than
to burgle the house of the gnoles. And this that abstemious man
unfolded to Tonker over a cup of tea. Had Tonker not been nearly
insane with pride over their recent transaction, and had he not been
blinded by a veneration for Nuth, he would have--but I cry over spilt
milk. He expostulated respectfully; he said he would rather not go; he
said it was not fair; he allowed himself to argue; and in the end, one
windy October morning with a menace in the air found him and Nuth
drawing near to the dreadful wood.

Nuth, by weighing little emeralds against pieces of common rock, had
ascertained the probable weight of those house-ornaments that the
gnoles are believed to possess in the narrow, lofty house wherein they
have dwelt from of old. They decided to steal two emeralds and to
carry them between them on a cloak; but if they should be too heavy
one must be dropped at once. Nuth warned young Tonker against greed,
and explained that the emeralds were worth less than cheese until they
were safe away from the dreadful wood.

Everything had been planned, and they walked now in silence.

No track led up to the sinister gloom of the trees, either of men or
cattle; not even a poacher had been there snaring elves for over a
hundred years. You did not trespass twice in the dells of the gnoles.
And, apart from the things that were done there, the trees themselves
were a warning, and did not wear the wholesome look of those that we
plant ourselves.

The nearest village was some miles away with the backs of all its
houses turned to the wood, and without one window at all facing in
that direction. They did not speak of it there, and elsewhere it is
unheard of.

Into this wood stepped Nuth and Tommy Tonker. They had no firearms.
Tonker had asked for a pistol, but Nuth replied that the sound of a
shot "would bring everything down on us," and no more was said about
it.

Into t