Notwithstanding these occasional interruptions, he worked so hard and continuously that the perspiration poured down him ere he had unscrewed those eighteen chests containing the pigs of lead.
However, it was done at last, and then he refreshed himself with a draught from his flask.

The next thing was, he took the three pigs of lead out of one of the cases marked _Shannon,_ etc., and numbered fifteen, and laid them very gently on the floor.

Then he transferred to that empty case the mixed contents of a case branded _Proserpine_ 1, etc., and this he did with the utmost care and nicety, lest gold dust spilled should tell tales.

And so he went on and amused himself by shifting the contents of the whole eighteen cases marked _Proserpine,_ etc., into eighteen cases marked _Shannon,_ etc., and refilling them with the _Shannon's_ lead.

Frolicsome Mr.Wylie! Then he sat down on one of the cases _Proserpine'd,_ and ate a biscuit and drank a little rum; not much; for at this part of his career he was a very sober man, though he could feign drunkenness, or indeed anything else.
The gold was all at his mercy, yet he did not pocket an ounce of it; not even a penny-weight to make a wedding-ring for Nancy Rouse.