miliar red blanket begin to show above the broken edge of the hollow,
and in another second there was a clinkum-clankum as the bundle fell upon
the ground. This was caused by the billy and the pannikin, which were
wrapped inside the blanket. As for the blanket, it had been tied tightly
at both ends, as well as at several points between, and my father
inwardly complimented the Professors on the neatness with which they had
packed and hidden their purchase. "But," he said to himself with a
laugh, "I think one of them must have got on the other's back to reach
that bough."

"Of course," thought he, "they will have taken the nuggets with them."
And yet he had seemed to hear a dumping as well as a clinkum-clankum. He
undid the blanket, carefully untying every knot and keeping the flax.
When he had unrolled it, he found to his very pleasurable surprise that
the pannikin was inside the billy, and the nuggets with the receipt
inside the pannikin. The paper containing the tea having been torn, was
wrapped up in a handkerchief marked with Hanky's name.

"Down, conscience, down!" he exclaimed as he transferred the nuggets,
receipt, and handkerchief to his own pocket. "Eye of my soul that you
are! if you offend me I must pluck you out." His conscience feared him
and said nothing. As for the tea, he left it in its torn paper.

He then put the billy, pannikin, and tea, back again inside the blanket,
which he tied neatly up, tie for tie with the Professor's own flax,
leaving no sign of any disturbance. He again swarmed the sucker, till he
reached the bough to which the blanket and its contents had been made
fast, and having attached the bundle, he dropped it back into the hollow
of the tree. He did everything quite leisurely, for the Professors would
be sure to wait till nightfall before coming to fetch their property
away.

"If I take nothing but the nuggets," he argued, "each of the Professors
will suspect the other of having conjured them into his own pocket while
the bundle was being made up. As for the handkerchief, they must think
what they like; but it will puzzle Hanky to know why Panky should have
been so anxious for a receipt, if he meant stealing the nuggets. Let
them muddle it out their own way."

Reflecting further, he concluded, perhaps rightly, that they had left the
nuggets where he had found them, because neither could trust the other
not to filch a few, if he had them in his own possession, and they c