ond through the iron safe of the bank at Frizinghall, we
shall be troubled with no more visits from the Indians for the present.
If he can't, we shall have another chance of catching them in the
shrubbery, before many more nights are over our heads."

I waited pretty confidently for that latter chance; but, strange to
relate, it never came.

Whether the jugglers heard, in the town, of Mr. Franklin having been
seen at the bank, and drew their conclusions accordingly; or whether the
boy really did see the Diamond where the Diamond was now lodged (which
I, for one, flatly disbelieve); or whether, after all, it was a mere
effect of chance, this at any rate is the plain truth--not the ghost
of an Indian came near the house again, through the weeks that passed
before Miss Rachel's birthday. The jugglers remained in and about the
town plying their trade; and Mr. Franklin and I remained waiting to see
what might happen, and resolute not to put the rogues on their guard
by showing our suspicions of them too soon. With this report of the
proceedings on either side, ends all that I have to say about the
Indians for the present.

On the twenty-ninth of the month, Miss Rachel and Mr. Franklin hit on
a new method of working their way together through the time which might
otherwise have hung heavy on their hands. There are reasons for taking
particular notice here of the occupation that amused them. You will find
it has a bearing on something that is still to come.

Gentlefolks in general have a very awkward rock ahead in life--the
rock ahead of their own idleness. Their lives being, for the most part,
passed in looking about them for something to do, it is curious to
see--especially when their tastes are of what is called the intellectual
sort--how often they drift blindfold into some nasty pursuit. Nine
times out of ten they take to torturing something, or to spoiling
something--and they firmly believe they are improving their minds, when
the plain truth is, they are only making a mess in the house. I have
seen them (ladies, I am sorry to say, as well as gentlemen) go out,
day after day, for example, with empty pill-boxes, and catch newts, and
beetles, and spiders, and frogs, and come home and stick pins through
the miserable wretches, or cut them up, without a pang of remorse, into
little pieces. You see my young master, or my young mistress, poring
over one of their spiders' insides with a magnifying-glass; or you meet
one of