He took out his key.

It would not fit the hole.
"Exhibit!" was peremptorily called again.
In his praiseworthy efforts to accommodate the keyhole, Ripton discovered that the desk was already unlocked.

Mr.Thompson marched to it, and held the lid aloft.

A book was lying open within, which Ripton immediately hustled among a mass of papers and tossed into a dark corner, not before the glimpse of a coloured frontispiece was caught by Sir Austin's eye.
The baronet smiled, and said, "You study Heraldry, too?
Are you fond of the science ?" Ripton replied that he was very fond of it--extremely attached, and threw a further pile of papers into the dark corner.
The notes had been less conspicuously placed, and the search for them was tedious and vain.

Papers, not legal, or the fruits of study, were found, that made Mr.Thompson more intimate with the condition of his son's exchequer; nothing in the shape of a remark on the Law of Gavelkind.
Mr.Thompson suggested to his son that they might be among those scraps he had thrown carelessly into the dark corner.