"There's witnesses enough here," said my grandfather,--for Joe the potman was now staring in from the bar--"to give you a good dose o' gaol, mum. 'Stead o' which I pay your full week's money and send you packin'!" He pulled out some silver from his pocket. "Grateful or not to me don't matter, but I hope you'll be honest where you go next, for your own sake." "Grateful! Honest!" Mrs. Grimes gasped, shaking with passion. "'Ear 'im talk! Honest! Take me to the station now, and bring that box an' show 'em inside it! Go on!" I felt more than a little alarmed at this challenge, having regard to the history of the pocket-book; and I remembered the night when we first examined it, the creaking door, and the soft sounds on the stairs. But Grandfather Nat was wholly undisturbed; he counted over the money calmly, and pushed it across the little table. "There it is, mum," he said, "an' there's your bonnet an' shawl in the corner. There's nothing else o' yours in the place, I believe, so there's no need for you to go out o' my sight till you go out of it altogether. That you'd better do quick. I'll lay the dinner myself." Mrs. Grimes swept up the money and began fixing her bonnet on her head and tying the strings under her chin, with savage jerks and a great play of elbow; her lips screwing nervously, and her eyes blazing with spite. "Ho yus!" she broke out--though her rage was choking her--as she snatched her shawl. "Ho yus! A nice pusson, Cap'en Nat Kemp, to talk about honesty an' gratefulness--a nice pusson! A nice teacher for young master 'opeful, I must say, an' 'opin' 'e'll do ye credit! It ain't the last you'll see o' me, Captain Nat Kemp!... Get out o' my way, you old lickspittle!" Mr. Cripps got out of it with something like a bound, and Mrs. Grimes was gone with a flounce and a slam of the door. Scold as she was, and furious as she was, I was conscious that something in my grandfather's scowl had kept her speech within bounds, and shortened her clamour; for few cared to face Captain Nat's anger. But with the slam of the door the scowl broke, and he laughed. "Come," he said, "that's well over, an' I owe you a turn, Mr. Cripps, though you weren't intending it. Stop an' have a bit of dinner. And if you'd like something on account to buy the board for the sign--or say two boards if you like--we'll see about it after dinner." It will be perceived that Grandfather Nat had no reason to regret the keeping of his cash-box key on his watchguard. For had it been with the rest, in Mrs. Grimes's hands, she need never have troubled to smuggle out the box among the ashes, since the pocket-book was no such awkward article, and would have gone in her pocket. Mrs. Grimes had taken her best chance and failed. The disorders caused by the inquests had left her unobserved, the keys were in her hands, and the cash-box was left in the cupboard upstairs; but the sedulous Mr. Cripps had been her destruction.