"One must have patience with weaker vessels," said the centipede. "So I will explain. My friend the bookworm, who supplies me with my quotations, has a cousin of the same profession in the library at the big house. It was through him that I got the story I am going to tell you about the fat man." "Mr. Johnson!" exclaimed Fiona. "He has nothing to do with me." She disliked Jeconiah heartily, so far as she had given any thought to him. "Oh, yes, he has," said the centipede. "This is where I come in. My bookworm's cousin, who is a great linguist and understands English perfectly, was at work in the library the other evening, and the fat man was having his coffee there. After coffee he lit a cigar and began to walk up and down, and presently he started talking to himself out loud, as my informant says he often does when he is excited. And by piecing his talk together, my informant made out that he had the map of the Scargill cave, which one of your ancestors once gambled away, and that somehow or other he had found out that the cave of the map _was_ the Scargill cave, and that he was only waiting for a smooth day to go and locate the treasure." "Well?" said Fiona. "Oh, come now," said the centipede, "it's no use pretending. We all know that you are treasure-hunting--remember we can all understand everything _you_ say, whether we are linguists or not--and my advice to you is, to be quick about it, before the fat man can get his oar in." "Thank you so much," said Fiona. "And I am so sorry I began by being rude. Tell me, why have you told me all this when I began by being rude?" "Because I am a model of the more unselfish virtues, of course," said the centipede with a suppressed chuckle. "As a fact, I had an earth-phone from headquarters. But we are all backing you, you know. And now will you put me down, please; the upper air is chilly." He wriggled into a crack in the ground, and was gone. That evening Fiona and the Urchin made their final preparations, in case the morrow should fall calm. That evening also Jeconiah heard that he had rivals in the field. His language, as he walked up and down the library, would have been very bad for the bookworm's morals had that intelligent insect been able to understand it all; but the bookworm's English, though good, was literary, and much of the modern idiom employed by Jeconiah slid off its back. Jeconiah's plan had been to make sure that the gold was there, and then charter a launch from Glasgow and take it straight to railway-head; he saw now that he could not afford the time, and that unless he could deal with the children in some way he might have to take the gold off in his boat, which would entail some risk, as well as cost him a heavy sum to buy his two boatmen. Also he made up his mind that he must go the next morning, whatever the weather, if it were possible to launch the boat; he knew that the children, with their little skiff, could only go to sea on calm days.