I need not say with what
intense interest I watched this proceeding. I felt as if life or death
were in the issue; for the loss of such a sum as L30, although it could
not, perhaps, be considered a very great one, was sufficiently large to
distress my father seriously; and already some idea of never facing him
again, should the money not be recovered, began to cross my mind.
All thoughts, however, of this or any other kind were absorbed, for the
moment, by the deep interest which I took in the operations of the man
with the rake; an interest this in which all present, less or more,
participated.
For a long while this search also was fruitless. More than half the area
had been gone over, and there was yet no appearance of my lost treasure.
At length, however--oh! how shall I describe the joy I felt?--a sweep of
the rake threw the well-known pocket-book on the surface of the sawdust.
I darted on it, clutched it, tore it open, and saw the bank-notes
apparently untouched. I counted them. They were all there.
"I thought so; I thought we should find it," said, with a calm smile,
the gentleman who had been so instrumental in its recovery.
The whole proceedings of the thief or thieves, so promptly and correctly
conjectured by my friend, were now obvious. Finding that passing it from
hand to hand would not avail them, he who was last in possession of it
had, on the search commencing, dropt it on the ground, and shuffled it
under the sawdust with his foot.
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