It was a relief in a way to find that Mr Pamphlett, after ringing each coin on his table, had accepted the seven pieces for currency.  But this business of the spade-guinea raised a new scare to agitate him.

In a confused way he remembered that in building the coins into piles he had found some of them to be broader than others, so that their edges overlapped, and that for symmetry he had sorted these broader pieces out and stacked them apart.  Of the last ten he had made a mixed pile,—­four broad coins at the base, six narrower ones above; and from this he had taken, purely by chance, the seven topmost to pay his debt—­that is to say, six sovereigns and one guinea-piece.  Luck had stood his friend.  A pretty business, had he gone to the banker with seven of those old-fashioned guineas!

Mr Hendy had handed him five shillings and fourpence change with his quittance, and on his way home he made a detour to hobble into Mr Gedye’s shop—­“S.  Gedye, Ironmonger and Ship-Chandler”—­and purchase two staples, a hasp, and a stout padlock, with key.

Mr Gedye, selecting these articles with a care that was slow torture to his customer, opined that the weather was settled at last, and trusted it would assist the Russians in mobilising.  The slower Mr Gedye became, the more ardently he repeated an expression of hope that the Russians would hurry up.

“Once they get going—­” said Mr Gedye, and pulled out a drawerful of staples so far that it upset and spilled its contents in an avalanche on the dark floor behind the counter.  “I knew a ship’s captain once, a Russian that married a woman over to Troy and would go to sleep for a week on end every time he came home from a voyage.  His wife would wake him up and give him tea:  that was all he took—­tea without milk, between the sheets.  He had been a Radical over in his own country, and the Radical agent over to Troy got wind o’ this an’ took steps to naturalise him.  It took seven years. . . .  But put him on deck in a gale o’ wind and a better skipper (I’m told) you wouldn’ meet in a day’s march.  When he got up an’ dressed, he’d dander down to the butcher’s an’ point to the fatty parts of the meat with the end of his walking-stick, which was made out of a shark’s backbone, if you ever!  In my experience, a very quiet nation until roused. . . .  Well, the Kaiser’s done it this time—­and a padlock, I think you said?  An uncomfortable man—­that’s my opinion of him, and I’ve never seen cause to change it.  Now, for a padlock, here is one I can thoroughly recommend, with two keys, so that you can lose one and still have the other, which is often a convenience.  Yu’ll be lockin’ up your ’taty-patch, Mr Nanjivell, against the Germans?  Well, a very proper precaution.”

“One can’t be too careful in these times,” said Nicky-Nan with feigned artlessness.

“No, indeed!  Anything I can do for ’ee in the way of barbed wire?”

“No, I thank ’ee.”  Nicky-Nan’s eyes had been wandering around the shop.  “But I’ll take this small sieve, now I come to think on it.”