some earth over them. "Look,
Jacob!" he said, at last. Jacob paused from his clinking, and looked
into the hole, while David began to scratch away the earth, as if in
doubtful expectation. When the lozenges were laid bare, he took them out
one by one, and gave them to Jacob. "Hush!" he said, in a loud whisper,
"Tell nobody--all for Jacob--hush--sh--sh! Put guineas in the
hole--they'll come out like this!" To make the lesson more complete, he
took a guinea, and lowering it into the hole, said, "Put in _so_." Then,
as he took the last lozenge out, he said, "Come out _so_," and put the
lozenge into Jacob's hospitable mouth.

Jacob turned his head on one side, looked first at his brother and then
at the hole, like a reflective monkey, and, finally, laid the box of
guineas in the hole with much decision. David made haste to add every
one of the stray coins, put on the lid, and covered it well with earth,
saying in his meet coaxing tone--

"Take 'm out to-morrow, Jacob; all for Jacob! Hush--sh--sh!"

Jacob, to whom this once indifferent brother had all at once become a
sort of sweet-tasted fetish, stroked David's best coat with his adhesive
fingers, and then hugged him with an accompaniment of that mingled
chuckling and gurgling by which he was accustomed to express the milder
passions. But if he had chosen to bite a small morsel out of his
beneficent brother's cheek, David would have been obliged to bear it.

And here I must pause, to point out to you the short-sightedness of human
contrivance. This ingenious young man, Mr. David Faux, thought he had
achieved a triumph of cunning when he had associated himself in his
brother's rudimentary mind with the flavour of yellow lozenges. But he
had yet to learn that it is a dreadful thing to make an idiot fond of
you, when you yourself are not of an affectionate disposition: especially
an idiot with a pitchfork--obviously a difficult friend to shake off by
rough usage.

It may seem to you rather a blundering contrivance for a clever young man
to bury the guineas. But, if everything had turned out as David had
calculated, you would have seen that his plan was worthy of his talents.
The guineas would have lain safely in the earth while the theft was
discovered, and David, with the calm of conscious innocence, would have
lingered at home, reluctant to say good-bye to his dear mother while she
was in grief about her guineas; till at length, on the eve of his
departure