"Your godfather and godmothers did very well for you at your baptism, Charity Oliver. Prophets they must have been. . . . But just you take a chair and compose yourself and listen to me. A minute ago you complained that I took you up before you were down. Well, I'll improve on that by taking you down before you're up--or up so far as you think yourself. Answer me. This is a piece of gold, eh?" "Why, of course. That's why I brought it to you." "What kind of a piece of gold?" "A guinea-piece. My father used to wear one on his watch-chain, and I recognised the likeness at once." "Quite so. Now when your father happened to earn a sovereign, did he go and hang it on his watch-chain?" "What a silly question!" "It isn't at all a silly question. . . . Tell me how many sovereigns you've seen in your life, and how many guineas?" "O-oh! . . . I think I see what you mean-" "I congratulate you, I'm sure! Now, I won't swear, but I'm morally certain that guineas haven't been what they call in circulation for years and years and years." "You're always seeing them in subscription lists," Miss Oliver objected. "Take our Emergency Fund--'Charles Pendarves Tresawna, Esq., J.P., twenty-five guineas.'" "I seem to remember that the Squire paid by cheque," said Mrs Polsue drily. "But the guineas must have been there, in the Bank. . . . Oh, I see! You mean that a guinea being worth twenty-one shillings--" "That's right: you're getting at it. Though I declare, Charity Oliver, there are times when I don't know which is furthest behind the times--your head, or the coquelicots you insist on wearing upon it. But now I hope you'll admit I was right, and there's a mystery about Nanjivell. Whether 'tis mixed up with his immorality or separate I won't pretend to decide, or not at this stage." "But anyway you can't make out a guinea-piece to be German," maintained Miss Oliver with a last show of obstinacy. "I don't say 'yes' or 'no' to that just yet," Mrs Polsue replied. "The newspapers tell us the Germans have been hoarding gold for a very long time. But you mentioned the Bank a moment ago--or did I? Never mind: it was a good suggestion anyway. Wait while I send across for Mr Pamphlett." "Why, to be sure," said Mr Pamphlett, "it's a guinea--a George the Second guinea." He pushed back a corner of the cloth and rang the coin on the table. "Sound . . . and not clipped at all. There's always its intrinsic value, as we say: and one of these days it will have an additional value as a curiosity. But as yet that is almost negligible. Oddly enough--" He broke off, fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and produced a guinea almost precisely similar. Miss Oliver gasped: it was so like a conjuring trick. "Where did Miss Oliver get this one?" asked Mr Pamphlett, laying his right forefinger upon the guinea on the table while still holding the other displayed in the palm of his left hand.