Haskins, who was slipping on his socks and shoes, looked up. "It's been in the water a good time anyhow, judging from the rotten brown paper and that decayed bladder. There's no chance of an explosion. If you are afraid to open it chuck it over." "No." Macandrew dropped on to the grass beside his friend. "We'll go to Kingdom Come together, if necessary. Lend me your knife!" Between them, the young men prized off the lid of the cylinder, with some difficulty, for it fitted tightly. The contents proved to be as puzzling as the vessel itself, for Gerald drew out a moderately long roller covered with brown wax, and scored delicately with regular lines, almost invisible. There was nothing else in the cylinder but this roller, and Tod eyed it with wonderment. "What the deuce is it?" he asked, twirling it round. Haskins pinched his nether lip and reflected. "It's a phonograph record," he ventured to suggest, "see the marking, Tod, and the wax, and here," he tilted the cylinder end uppermost, "there's a name engraved on the butt, plainly, for all the world to see." "Jekle & Co.," read Tod, fitting in his eye-glass to see clearly. "H'm! I never heard of the firm." "That's not improbable: your knowledge of many things being limited." "Oh, come now. Did you ever hear of the firm your own conceited self?" "No. But it's a firm that makes phonographs anyhow." Gerald slipped the treasure trove into his pocket. "We'll take this back to the inn, and see what it means." "We shall have to get a phonograph then." "That goes without the speaking, you bally ass. But when we do slip this roller into its parent machine these marks will talk." "But how can we get a parent machine? I suppose you mean a Jekle & Co. mechanism of sorts." "There must be a machine of that sort in the district, or this roller wouldn't be here." Tod stared at the waters blinking in the sunshine. "I wonder how it got into the blessed river. By accident or by design?" "By design assuredly," said Haskins promptly. "It was wrapped in brown paper and sealed at both ends. The bladder was attached to keep it afloat. Then the bladder went bang and the cylinder sank until you fished it out, Toddy." "Queer fish and queer chance, anyhow." "There is no such thing as chance," said Haskins slowly; "some cause we know not of, brought us to the stream to-day to get the cylinder." "Why, we only came holiday-making," protested Tod; "you are always talking this infernal psychology." "Supernal psychology, you mean," retorted the other, "seeing that I follow white magic and not black. This," he patted his pocket, "has a meaning. We must learn that meaning." "And so get into trouble." "Perhaps." Haskins shrugged his shoulders. "But trouble is the sole thing which urges us to rise." Tod groaned. He could not understand his friend's mystical way of looking at the seen world through the unseen. Keeping the conversation on an ordinary level he inquired: "Why was the cylinder set afloat?"