"I infinitely prefer being by myself." "When do you expect your gold and silver plates to be returned to you ?" "In about a week." "What would be the value of them, in money--at a rough guess ?" "At a rough guess--about seventy or eighty pounds." "In a week's time then," I said, "you will have seventy or eighty pounds' worth of property at Browndown.

Property which a thief need only put into the melting-pot, to have no fear of its being traced into his hands." Oscar stopped, and looked at me.
"What _can_ you be thinking of!" he asked.

"There are no thieves in this primitive place." "There are thieves in other places," I answered.

"And they may come here.
Have you forgotten those two men whom we caught hanging about Browndown yesterday ?" He smiled.

I had recalled to him a humourous association--nothing more.
"It was not we who caught them," he said.