I knew everything it contained--exactly how many cans of plum pudding.
It was the box I had rested my feet on.

I felt perfectly sure he knew as well as I what the box contained, and to suppose he would sit there planning to recover canned food, however dainty, was ridiculous.
Wherefore it was a safe conclusion he was trying to deceive me as to his real intention.

I put my foot on the box again, and he frowned, as much as to say I had forestalled his only hope.

Pretending to watch the box and him, I examined every detail of the tent, particularly that side of it opposite the box, away from where it seemed he wanted me to look.
The human eye is a highly imperfect piece of mechanism and the human brain is mostly grayish slush.

It was minutes before I detected the edge of his diary, sticking out from the pocket of Fred's shooting coat that itself protruded from under the folded blanket on which Fred had slept.