He did not take out the sack again, but replaced it by a sponge-bag, and the bag, later, by a stout leathern purse. Finally, he decided that his trouser-pockets would serve all our needs, with the additional advantage that our hands would be freer thereby, and the risk of comment on our proceedings avoided. It may have been, for it had certainly little to feed upon. During those early weeks, beyond some scraps of old iron, we found nothing. At first, it must be said, Uncle Jenico was not so entirely possessed by his infatuation, but he found time to experiment in other directions. For days he made our lodgings almost uninhabitable by boiling and decomposing seaweed, until Mrs. Puddephatt complained that her reputation was suffering by the incessant “hodour of ’ot putrid fish” which emanated from her premises. The patent, upon which he had expected to realize, turned out, after all, a disappointment, and had never, it appeared, been regarded as other than a joke by the man who, he had supposed, had been going to buy it. He was a little disconsolate at first, but soon brightened up when he thought of the potential riches lying under the shingle. “_We’ll_ laugh at ’em all by-and-by, Richard,” he said. “What a joke it’ll be when we’ve got our own capital to work upon, and these ninnies find out the good things they’ve missed. But we won’t be relentless, my boy, and disinherit the honest labourer because of the shortsightedness of his employer. Work for the good of mankind, remember, and you work for your own.” Fine weather, at this time, made him thoughtful and restless. It was only when the wind blew and the waves rose that he cheered up and became excited like a seagull. Then he would laugh aloud, and button up his coat and, telling me to follow him when my lesson was over, limp off to the beach, and there untiringly weave his ropes of sand, growing more and more absorbed in his task the faster it melted beneath his hands. The coins were there, he was convinced; and it only needed patience and luck (and he plumed himself upon his being rather a spoilt child of the latter) to hit upon the deposits. In the meanwhile I was going to my daily lesson, and getting absorbed in my own way. Mr. Sant was a delectable tutor, inspiring and invigorating, and by-and-by, unconsciously to me, my hour extended itself to two, and sometimes more. So months passed, and then a year, and I was nine. One morning I was on my way to the rectory when I made a notable acquaintance. I had to pass, on my setting out, the new school, which was now in full activity, and battling its first successful steps in the moral and intellectual reformation of infant Dunberry. The children were generally trooping to the bell-call as I started, and I have no doubt that the sense of superiority my consciousness of private tuition gave me made itself apparent to some of them in my air and demeanour.