Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/144

132 that was locked, and up in the loft, and under the floor. I had looked myself, and told him so, but he persisted in looking. Then he asked me what my boxes were like.

I described them to him several times during the interview, at his own request. The boxes were of unusual size and shape, and there would be no mistaking them; yet he persisted in pulling out empty fruit-boxes, and barrels, and bits of machinery from amongst the rubbish, and asking me whether "any of them was them." He looked at the label on a crate full of straw, and the name on it only differed in the matter of three letters from mine. He pulled that out at once, and wanted to know if it was mine. I am not sure now that I really convinced him that it wasn't. Then I had a happy thought—I should have had it before.

"Are you in charge of this shed?" I asked—and I waited.

"No," he said, "I ain't."

"Is there a man in charge?" I asked—and gave him time.

"Yes," he said slowly, "there is."

"Can I see him?"

"Well—you might see him—if you want to."

"And where is he?"

"Oh! he's up the yard, he is."

I went up the yard and found the man in charge, and got him to admit it. He might have been the youth that I'd left in the shed, suddenly grown several years older, but otherwise little changed.