Berry. "But don't question me. I can't
bear it. I'll tell you all in a minute, but you must let me alone.
Above all, don't thwart me. I warn you, my condition is critical."

He sighed heavily.

Apparently impressed by his demeanour, Nobby approached, set his paws
upon his knee, and licked his face.

"There you are," said Berry, lifting the dog to his lap. "The very
fowls of the air pity me. No, it's not a sore, old chap. It's where I
cut myself yesterday. But I'm just as grateful. And now lie still, my
beauty, and poor old Sit-tight the Smuggler will tell you such a tale
as will thicken your blood.

"Upon Friday morning last I purchased a uniform-case. Not a new
one--the oldest and most weather-beaten relic I could procure. On
Friday evening I packed it. One thousand cigars, five thousand
cigarettes, and six pounds of tobacco looked very well in it. My
sword, a pair of field boots, breeches, coat--carefully folded to
display the staff badges--and my red hat looked even better. I filled
up with socks, shirts, puttees, slacks, spurs and all the old emblems
of Mars that I could lay my hands on. Finally I leavened the lot with
a pound of the best white pepper--to discourage the moths, my fellow,
to discourage the moths."

His tone suggesting the discomfiture of the wicked, the Sealyham barked
his applause.

"Quite so. Well, I locked the case up and corded it, and precisely at
ten o'clock I retired to bed.

"I never remember feeling so full of beans as I did the next morning.
I could have bluffed my way across Europe with a barrel of whiskey on a
lead. I felt ready for anything. Sharp at a quarter to eleven I was
at the station, and one minute later a porter, with the physique of a
blacksmith, had the box on his shoulder and my dressing-case in his
hand.

"It was as he was preparing to lay his spoils at the feet of the
registration-monger that my bearer trod upon a banana-skin.... To say
that he took a toss, conveys nothing at all. It was the sort of fall
you dream of--almost too good to be true. And my uniform-case, of
which he never let go, described a very beautiful parabola, and then
came down upon the weigh-bridge, as the swiple of an uplifted flail
comes down upon grain....

"Both hinges went, of course. It says much for the box that the whole
thing didn't melt then and there. If I hadn't corded it, most of the
stuff would have been all over the Vauxhall Bridge Road.

"Well, I was