“A power o’ talking, Rat,” he said, “you’ve allowed me, a power of talking.” “And it’s talking you’ve got to do this time, Crumblejohn; don’t you make any mistake. You’ve got this lot out of the cave all right, and you’ve got the vaults filled up in time before the company. But if we have another run of goods before we get this lot up-country, there’ll be more trouble than you nor me can do away with. I haven’t read Dan’l’s letters in his coat pocket for nothing, when he was washing himself at the pump.” Crumblejohn enjoyed this immensely. “Ye don’t tell me he carries his orders about with him for all the world to see? A wal’able servant of the Crown, ’pon my honour. Rat, you’re a wily one.” “And wily-er than you’d suppose, for Dan’l warn’t such an innercent as you’d be ready to think. He didn’t keep his letters so careless neither. But I’ve been watching him, and what I learned when he was at the pump ’s only a trifle to what I’ve learned by signs and tokens.” The inn-keeper knocked the ashes from his pipe. Then he rose from his chair, ponderously. “I wish you hadn’t given me such a power o’ talking, Rat; wish I mayn’t break my neck over it, wish I mayn’t break my neck.” He walked across the sanded floor and unlocked the door cautiously, and the rat-faced man slipped past him into the night. But how did he manage to muffle his footsteps, so that Crumblejohn heard no sound of him upon the road? CHAPTER XXI _Five and twenty ponies Trotting through the dark, Brandy for the parson, Baccy for the clerk, Laces for a lady, letters for a spy, And watch the wall, my darling, While the gentlemen go by!_ R. KIPLING. On the day on which the last run of goods had been cellared, Master Crumblejohn stood looking with pride, at the swift succession of casks that were being rolled briskly along his stone passage. He wore a leather apron, a good stock collar, and his hair tied in a queue, with a black ribbon in his neck. He had big buckles to his shoes and a canary waistcoat, and a brown coat upon his back. Everybody knew the history of his liquor. In these days of a thriving back-hand trade with the wines, many houses that stood fairly with the Justices, got their supply in a manner that would have brought humbler folk to punishment. But if inquiry was pushed in regard to the “Mariner’s Rest,” the landlord had a good book to show the authorities. Everything in his cellar was duly entered and paid for; he would show the King himself round if his Majesty chose to call. This was a favourite jest of Master Crumblejohn’s when in lighter mood, and it would be said with a nodding head to clinch matters, and between quiet puffs of a long clay-pipe.