"_My_ wife," said the younger, "has been filling the new house at Egerton Gardens full of the most awful-looking gimcracks I ever saw. She'll want that spinet directly she hears of it, and if she could only find another warming-pan she'd hang it up in the bedroom passages as an ornament." "_My_ wife," said Creech, "warms the beds with ours in the winter. It's a very good one, but I'll send it back if Mrs. Jones wants to decorate her landing." "No," said Jones Junior, "we'll say nothing about it. There's far too much rubbish in the house already. Suppose," to his brother, "we go down into the vaults and have a look round." This was agreed to, so down they went, after Creech had armed himself with a large paraffin candle and had rummaged out a bag full of keys of all sizes and shapes, while the elder Jones carried with him the more modern and bright keys that opened the safes and strong room. This latter they were, of course, in the habit of visiting every day, but the trap door leading to the vaults below--which was in the floor of the strong room--testified to the truth of Creech's assertion that it possibly had not been opened for twenty years. First of all, when the key was found, the lock was so rusty that it could not be turned until some oil had been brought, and then the door had stuck so that the two brothers--for Creech was no good at this work--could hardly pull it up. However, at last they got it open, and then they descended the stone steps one by one. The place--as seen by the light of the candle--was, as the old cashier had described it, an _olla-podrida_ of all kinds of lumber. The hamper of broken glass and crockery was there, so was the spinet, looking very antique and somewhat mouldy--a thing not to be wondered at, seeing that the Jones family had not lived over the bank during the present century. The broken chairs, stools, and tables were all piled in a corner--in another stood the boxes, some of them burst open, of which Creech had spoken. And around and about the vaults there pervaded the damp atmosphere which such places always have. The cashier had brought a second candle in his pocket, which he now lit, and by this additional light they saw all that there was to be seen.