ive
to such words as _cave_, _trap-door_, _sliding-panel_, _bullion_,
_ingots_, or _Spanish dollars_. For, besides its own special bliss, who
ever heard of a secret drawer with nothing in it? And O I did want money
so badly! I mentally ran over the list of demands which were pressing me
the most imperiously.

First, there was the pipe I wanted to give George Jannaway. George, who
was Martha's young man, was a shepherd, and a great ally of mine; and
the last fair he was at, when he bought his sweetheart fairings, as a
right-minded shepherd should, he had purchased a lovely snake expressly
for me; one of the wooden sort, with joints, waggling deliciously in the
hand; with yellow spots on a green ground, sticky and strong-smelling,
as a fresh-painted snake ought to be; and with a red-flannel tongue
pasted cunningly into its jaws. I loved it much, and took it to bed with
me every night, till what time its spinal cord was loosed and it fell
apart, and went the way of all mortal joys. _I_ thought it very nice of
George to think of me at the fair, and that's why I wanted to give him a
pipe. When the young year was chill and lambing-time was on, George
inhabited a little wooden house on wheels, far out on the wintry downs,
and saw no faces but such as were sheepish and woolly and mute; and when
he and Martha were married, she was going to carry his dinner out to him
every day, two miles; and after it, perhaps he would smoke my pipe. It
seemed an idyllic sort of existence, for both the parties concerned; but
a pipe of quality, a pipe fitted to be part of a life such as this,
could not be procured (so Martha informed me) for a smaller sum than
eighteenpence. And meantime----!

Then there was the fourpence I owed Edward; not that he was bothering me
for it, but I knew he was in need of it himself, to pay back Selina, who
wanted it to make up a sum of two shillings, to buy Harold an ironclad
for his approaching birthday,--H.M.S. _Majestic_, now lying uselessly
careened in the toyshop window, just when her country had such sore need
of her. And then there was that boy in the village who had caught a
young squirrel, and I had never yet possessed one, and he wanted a
shilling for it, but I knew that for ninepence in cash--but what was the
good of these sorry threadbare reflections? I had wants enough to
exhaust any possible find of bullion, even if it amounted to half a
sovereign. My only hope now lay in the magic drawer, and here I