He then put the billy, pannikin, and tea, back again inside the blanket, which he tied neatly up, tie for tie with the Professor’s own flax, leaving no sign of any disturbance.  He again swarmed the sucker, till he reached the bough to which the blanket and its contents had been made fast, and having attached the bundle, he dropped it back into the hollow of the tree.  He did everything quite leisurely, for the Professors would be sure to wait till nightfall before coming to fetch their property away.

“If I take nothing but the nuggets,” he argued, “each of the Professors will suspect the other of having conjured them into his own pocket while the bundle was being made up.  As for the handkerchief, they must think what they like; but it will puzzle Hanky to know why Panky should have been so anxious for a receipt, if he meant stealing the nuggets.  Let them muddle it out their own way.”

Reflecting further, he concluded, perhaps rightly, that they had left the nuggets where he had found them, because neither could trust the other not to filch a few, if he had them in his own possession, and they could not make a nice division without a pair of scales.  “At any rate,” he said to himself, “there will be a pretty quarrel when they find them gone.”

Thus charitably did he brood over things that were not to happen.  The discovery of the Professors’ hoard had refreshed him almost as much as his sleep had done, and it being now past seven, he lit his pipe—­which, however, he smoked as furtively as he had done when he was a boy at school, for he knew not whether smoking had yet become an Erewhonian virtue or no—­and walked briskly on towards Sunch’ston.

CHAPTER VII:  SIGNS OF THE NEW ORDER OF THINGS CATCH MY FATHER’S EYE ON EVERY SIDE

He had not gone far before a turn in the path—­now rapidly widening—­showed him two high towers, seemingly some two miles off; these he felt sure must be at Sunch’ston, he therefore stepped out, lest he should find the shops shut before he got there.

On his former visit he had seen little of the town, for he was in prison during his whole stay.  He had had a glimpse of it on being brought there by the people of the village where he had spent his first night in Erewhon—­a village which he had seen at some little distance on his right hand, but which it would have been out of his way to visit, even if he had wished to do so; and he had seen the Museum of old machines, but on leaving the prison he had been blindfolded.  Nevertheless he felt sure that if the towers had been there he should have seen them, and rightly guessed that they must belong to the temple which was to be dedicated to himself on Sunday.