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Rh gone, and it begins to look to me as though there was precious little hope of ever seeing the things again. We reckoned they were worth fully two thousand dollars, and from now on I shall consider myself in debt to you for that amount, though as far as I can judge from my present finances, it'll be some considerable time before you're paid."

"Don't look at it in that way, please," said Chester, "though it's true they were my sheet anchor—my last hope. There's only the Kestrel left now, and if I sold her we should be utterly stranded."

"It is possible," said Joan, "that they might yet turn up—hidden away in some totally unexpected place. You know how things are found sometimes in the most unlikely corners."

"It's possible," agreed Chester, with an attempt to be civil in trying circumstances "but it doesn't sound to me likely."

Keith shook his head.

"I'm afraid," he said, "very much afraid, that's the end of them. I have a dim sort of notion—so dim that it is more than likely to be imagination—that I did something with them which put my mind at rest on the subject for the time. And as they're not in the house I might have hidden them out of doors, in which case the hunt would be hopeless."

"It couldn't have cropped up at a more inop-