with you? You don't go to throwing such things about, do you?"

"I don't know. There is much excitement at the house, there is the
big fire, there is the boy of the Academy coming to put it out, there
is the man from Riverton, and there is the baby, which I forget, and
the boy go up in all the smoke and bring him down. I shall lose my
place if the baby is lose. How can I remember a watch, which I
cannot carry, for fear some one say I steal? Ah! you should not give!"

"And now you have lost it!" growled the man. "Haven't you any idea?
Couldn't you have mislaid it? You are not lying to me, you have
really lost it, Gabrielle?"

"Yes, I tell you I have lose it, and I am glad!" cried the woman
in a higher key than before, and with great excitement.

The tide now began to take the boys back down the hill, and Jack
quickly steered so that he would go down with it, being speedily
out of sound of voices.

"What do you think of that, Jack?" whispered Percival.

"That the mystery of the watch seems to be as deep as ever."




CHAPTER IX

ANOTHER CLAIMANT FOR THE WATCH