"If you’d only been theer instead o’ me!" he muttered. "Ah! ’Twas carriers. Iss: Maister John axed if ’twas settled about carriers. ’A round score,’ says Doubledick, if ’t wasn’t two; ’good fellers all; no wamblin’, slack-twisted cripple-toes for this job,’ says he." "What job?" "That I can’t say. But Zacky Tonkin was in it; iss; gie me a minute for rec’lection; iss. Doubledick says, ’Zacky be sour as a green apple.’ ’Ha! ha!’ laughs Maister John, ’’a don’t like playin’ second fiddle,’ says he, which is a passel o’ nonsense, ’cos Zacky never played on fiddle, fust, second, nor last either, all his born days, that I do know. ’’Tis for ’ee to keep un quiet!’ says Maister John. ’He hev his uses, but hain’t got a mossel of brains. You’ve got enough for two, Doubledick,’ says he." Dick was becoming impatient. The conversation as reported was not very enlightening, and surely Doubledick had not visited the Dower House to discuss such trivialities. But Dick had learnt his lesson; he would not err again by being over-hasty; so he schooled himself to endure the slow trickle of information as it oozed from Sam’s reluctant memory. "Didn’t they name Penwarden at all?" he asked. "Never heerd un. The only other names I heerd wer Tom Pennycomequick and Jimmy Nancarrow." "Ah! what about them?" Sam reflected. "Tom Pennycomequick and Jimmy Nancarrow," he repeated, as if the repetition would recall the connection. "Iss; I mind o’t. Says Maister John, ’Who be on guard to-day?’" "’On guard!’ Not ’on the watch’?" "That’s what ’a meant, seemingly, but ’a said ’on guard.’ ’Tom Pennycomequick and Jimmy Nancarrow,’ says Doubledick. There was summat about ’bogeys,’ if I could only mind. Iss, fay; I’ve got un. ’Two,’ says Maister John, ’what for?’ ’Hee! hee!’ goes Doubledick; ’’cos they was afeard to go alone,’ says he. ’Afeard o’ their own bogeys,’ says Maister John, and then they both laughed so hearty that daze me if I didn’t bust out too, and had to clap the tail of a coat in my jaws so they shouldn’ hear. ’T’ud ha’ been gashly if they found me, and drawed out o’ me how maidy Susan had put me theer, and—well, you bean’t a-hearkenin’, so I’ll say no more." In truth, Dick’s ears were closed; his mind was rapidly piecing together the fragmentary items of information Sam had given him. They had now reached the Towers; Dick went straight to his bedroom, and sat with his elbow on the window-sill, looking out over the grey sullen sea, and striving to bind together these separate strands. The outcome of his meditation was as follows: