“Could not he keep his chest with him all the voyage?” asked Phonny.

“No,” said Beechnut; “the chests, and all large parcels of baggage belonging to the passengers, must be sent down into the hold of the ship out of the way.  It is only a very little baggage that the people are allowed to keep with them between the decks.  My father wished very much to keep his gold with him, and yet he was afraid to keep it in a bag, or in any other similar package, in his little trunk, for then whoever saw it would know that it was gold, and so perhaps form some plan to rob him of it.

“While we were considering what plan it would be best to adopt for the gold, Arielle, who was the daughter of a friend of ours, proposed to hide it in my top.  I had a very large top which my father had made for me.  It was painted yellow outside, with four stripes of bright blue passing down over it from the stem to the point.  When the top was in motion, both the yellow ground and the blue stripes entirely disappeared, and the top appeared to be of a uniform green color.  Then, when it came to its rest again, the original colors would reappear.”

“How curious!” said Madeline.  “Why would it do so?” “Why, when it was revolving,” said Beechnut, “the yellow and the blue were blended together in the eye, and that made green.  Yellow and blue always make green.  Arielle colored my top, after my father had made it, and then my father varnished it over the colors, and that fixed them.

“This top of mine was a monstrous large one, and being hollow, Arielle thought that the gold could all be put inside.  She said she thought that that would be a very safe hiding-place, too, since nobody would think of looking into a top for gold.  But my father said that he thought that the space would not be quite large enough, and then if anybody should happen to see the top, and should touch it, the weight of it would immediately reveal the secret.

“At last my father thought of a plan which he believed would answer the purpose very perfectly.  We had a very curious old clock.  It was made by my grandfather, who was a clockmaker in Geneva.  There was a little door in the face of the clock, and whenever the time came for striking the hours, this door would open, and a little platform would come out with a tree upon it.  There was a beautiful little bird upon the tree, and when the clock had done striking, the bird would flap its wings and sing.  Then the platform would slide back into its place, the door would shut, and the clock go on ticking quietly for another hour.

“This clock was made to go,” continued Beechnut, “as many other clocks are, by two heavy weights, which were hung to the wheel-work by strong cords.  The cords were wound round some of the wheels, and as they slowly descended by their weight, they made the wheels go round.  There was a contrivance inside the clock to make the wheels go slowly and regularly, and not spin round too fast, as they would have done if the weights had been left to themselves.  This is the way that clocks are often made.