I therefore followed him into his bedroom without further
protest, and suffered him first to show me the iron map-case
which stood in one corner; he took a crafty pride in this
receptacle, and I thought he would never cease descanting on its
innocent appearance and its Chubb's lock. It seemed an
interminable age before the key was in the latter. Then the ward
clicked, and my pulse stood still.
"By Jove!" I cried next instant.
The canvas was in its place among the maps!
"Thought it would knock you," said Craggs, drawing it out and
unrolling it for my benefit. 'Grand thing, ain't it? Wouldn't
think it had been painted two hundred and thirty years? It has,
though, MY word! Old Johnson's face will be a treat when he sees
it; won't go bragging about HIS pictures much more. Why, this
one's worth all the pictures in Colony o' Queensland put
together. Worth fifty thousand pounds, my boy--and I got it for
five!"
He dug me in the ribs, and seemed in the mood for further
confidences. My appearance checked him, and he rubbed his hands.
"If you take it like that," he chuckled, "how will old Johnson
take it? Go out and hang himself to his own picture-rods, I
hope!"
Heaven knows what I contrived to say at last. Struck speechless
first by my relief, I continued silent from a very different
cause.
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