He pulled out the drawers and papers, and threw them on his bed.  He tried to move the bureau, and found it almost as heavy as ever.

’I am thinking, Howel, bach, that cupboard don’t go through to the back of the bureau,’ suggested Mrs Jenkins.

Howel seized the poker and aimed a blow at the cupboard; the mahogany did not give way, but they fancied they heard a chinking sound within.

‘I am thinking,’ said the mother, ’that it must be a double bureau.  It is looking so much broader than it do seem.’

Howel examined it, and began to think so, too; he took some carpenter’s tools down from the shelf, and set to work to try to pierce the back of the bureau with a gimlet, in order to see if the gimlet would appear on the other side.

He worked the implement through a portion of the wood, and then found its course stopped by some still harder matter.  He had recourse to his penknife, with which he hacked a hole in the wood, large enough to find that there was an inner back of iron, or some kind of metal.  Each new obstacle served only to inflame his impatience, and to provoke his temper.  He forgot the bed in the next room, and everything else in the world except the attainment of his object, and running downstairs, returned with a large sledge-hammer that he found in the coal-hole.  With his strength concentrated in one blow, he swung it against the back of the bureau, and had the satisfaction of finding his wishes gratified.  The concussion moved some secret spring somewhere, for as the piece of furniture tottered on its foundation, and fell forwards against the bed, out rolled such a profusion of gold, as led Howel to believe, the ’El dorado’ was found at last.  Mother and son lifted up their hands in astonishment; gold pieces were in every corner of the room, scattered here and there like large yellow hail.

The noise of the blow, however, and the subsequent fall of the bureau had alarmed a neighbour, and before one piece of the tempting gold had been picked up, there was a loud knock at the door.

‘Say the house has fallen in; the inquisitive fools!’ exclaimed Howel, as his mother left the room.

Howel began to fill his pockets with gold pieces, and opening a box, pushed as many as he could hastily gather up into it also.  There were thousands upon thousands of sovereigns upon the floor.

‘It was old Pal, the shop,’ said Mrs Jenkins, returning to her golden harvest, ’she was up nursing next door, and heard the noise.  I tell her it was the table falling down.’

’Now, mother, as soon as all is over, I must go to London and clear off my debts with some of this money; but I must see Netta first.’

’Why don’t you be putting it in the bank, Howel, bach?  It will make a gentleman of you.’

’There’s enough besides to make me a gentleman, if I am not one already; and I promise you, that when I am clear again I will come back and make all the rich men in the country hang their heads.  But I want to see Netta.’