"My rosary!" sighed Elsie, with premonition of disaster, when she had determined the spot as exactly as she could. "Oh, Mr Carrados!" "I am sorry, but it might be worse," said Carrados inflexibly. "We only require to find the elbow-joint. Mr Bellmark will investigate with as little disturbance as possible." For five minutes Bellmark made trials with a pointed iron. Then he cleared away the soil of a small circle and at about a foot deep exposed a broken inch pipe. "The fountain," announced Carrados, when he had examined it. "You have the compass, Mr Bellmark?" "Rather a small one," admitted Bellmark. "Never mind, you are a mathematician. I want you to strike a line due east." The reel and cord came into play and an adjustment was finally made from the broken pipe to a position across the vegetable garden. "Now a point nine yards, nine feet and nine inches along it." "My onion bed!" cried Elsie tragically. "Yes; it is really serious this time," agreed Carrados. "I want a hole a yard across, digging here. May we proceed?" Elsie remembered the words of her uncle's letter--or what she imagined to be his letter--and possibly the preamble of selecting the spot had impressed her. "Yes, I suppose so. Unless," she added hopefully, "the turnip bed will do instead? They are not sown yet." "I am afraid that nowhere else in the garden will do," replied Carrados. Bellmark delineated the space and began to dig. After clearing to about a foot deep he paused. "About deep enough, Mr Carrados?" he inquired. "Oh, dear no," replied the blind man. "I am two feet down," presently reported the digger. "Deeper!" was the uncompromising response. Another six inches were added and Bellmark stopped to rest. "A little more and it won't matter which way up we plant Coccinea," he remarked. "That is the depth we are aiming for," replied Carrados. Elsie and her husband exchanged glances. Then Bellmark drove his spade through another layer of earth. "Three feet," he announced, when he had cleared it. Carrados advanced to the very edge of the opening. "I think that if you would loosen another six inches with the fork we might consider the ground prepared," he decided. Bellmark changed his tools and began to break up the soil. Presently the steel prongs grated on some obstruction. "Gently," directed the blind watcher. "I think you will find a half-pound cocoa tin at the end of your fork." "Well, how on earth you spotted that----!" was wrung from Bellmark admiringly, as he cleared away the encrusting earth. "But I believe you are about right." He threw up the object to his wife, who was risking a catastrophe in her eagerness to miss no detail. "Anything in it besides soil, Elsie?" "She cannot open it yet," remarked Carrados. "It is soldered down." "Oh, I say," protested Bellmark. "It is perfectly correct, Roy. The lid is soldered on." They looked at each other in varying degrees of wonder and speculation. Only Carrados seemed quite untouched.