got it out—a fair-sized leather bag bound with thongs. To one of these was attached the ring we had first caught sight of.

Now, kneeling as we were, we stared up in Captain Pegg's face. His wide, blue eyes had somehow got a different look.

"Little boys," he said gently, "open it!"

There in the moonlight, we unloosed the fastenings of the bag and turned its contents out upon the bare boards. The treasure lay disclosed then, a glimmering heap, as though, out of the dank earth, we had digged a patch of moonshine.

We squatted on the boards around it, our heads touching, our wondering eyes filled with the magic of it.

"It is the treasure," murmured Angel, in an awe-struck voice, "real treasure-trove. Will you tell us, Captain Pegg, what all these things are?"

Captain Pegg, squatting like the rest of us, ran his hands meditatively through the strange collection.

"Why, strike me purple," he growled, "if that scamp Jenks hasn't kept most of the gold coins and left us only the silver! But here's three golden doubloons, all right, one apiece for ye! And here's ducats and silver florins, and pieces of eight—and some I can't name till I get the daylight on them. It's a pretty bit of treasure all told; and see here—" he held up two old Spanish watches, just the thing for gentlemen adventurers.

We boys were now delving into the treasure on our own account, and brought to light a brace of antiquated pistols, an old silver flagon, a compass, a wonderful set of chess men carved from ivory, and some curious shells, that delighted The Seraph. And other quaint things there were that we handled reverently, and coins of different countries, square and round, and some with holes bored through.

We were so intent upon our discovery that none of us heard the approaching footsteps till they were fair upon us. Then, with a start, we turned, and saw to our horror Mrs. Handsomebody and Mary Ellen, with her hair in curl-papers, and, close behind them, Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Pegg, scantily attired, the gentleman carrying a revolver.

"David! John! Alexander!" gobbled Mrs. Handsomebody.

"Now what d'ye think of that!" came from Mary Ellen.

"Father! Have you gone quite mad?" cried Mrs. Pegg.

And—"Oh, I say Governor—" stammered the gentleman with the revolver.

Captain Pegg rose to his feet with dignity.

"These young gentlemen," he said, simply, "have with my help been able to locate some buried treasure, stolen from me years ago by a man named Jenks, and hidden here since two decades. I hereby renounce all claim to it in favour of my three brave friends!"

Mr. Pegg was bent over the treasure.

"Now, look here, sir," he said, rather sharply, "some of this seems to be quite valuable stuff—"

"I know the value of it to a penny," replied his father, with equal asperity, "and I intend it shall belong solely and wholly to these boys."

"Whatever are you rigged up like that for?" demanded his daughter-in-law.

"As gentlemen of spirit," replied Captain Pegg, patiently, "we chose to dress the part. We do what we can to keep a little glamour and gaiety in the world. Some folk—" he looked at Mrs. Handsomebody—"would like to discipline it all away."

"I think," said our governess, "that, considering it is my back yard, I have some claim to—"

"None at all, Madam—none at all!" interrupted Captain Pegg. "By all the rules of treasure-hunting, the finder keeps the treasure."

Mrs. Handsomebody was silenced. She did not wish to quarrel with the Peggs.

Mrs. Pegg moved closer to her.

"Mrs. Handsomebody," she said, winking her white eyelashes very fast, "I really do not think that you should allow your pupils to accept this—er—treasure. My father-in-law has become very eccentric of late, and I am positive that he himself buried these things very recently. Only day before yesterday, I saw that set of ivory chessmen on his writing table."

"Hold your tongue, Sophia!" shouted Captain Pegg loudly.

Mr. Mortimer Pegg looked warningly at his wife.

"All right, Governor! Don't you worry," he said taking his father's arm. "It shall be just as you say; but one thing is certain, you'll take your death of cold if you stay out in this night air." As he spoke, he turned up the collar of his coat.

Captain Pegg shook hands grandly with Angel and me, then he lifted The Seraph in his arms and kissed him.

"Good-night, bantling," he said, softly. "Sleep tight!"

He turned then to his son. "Mort," said he, "I haven't kissed a little boy like that since you were just so high."

Mr. Pegg laughed and shivered, and they went off quite amiably, arm in arm, Mrs. Pegg following, muttering to herself.

Mrs. Handsomebody looked disparagingly at the treasure. "Mary Ellen," she ordered, "help the children to gather up that rubbish, and come in at once. Such an hour it is!"

Mary Ellen, with many exclamations, assisted in the removal of the treasure to our bedroom. Mrs. Handsomebody, after seeing it deposited there, and us safely under the bed-clothes, herself extinguished the gas.

"I shall write to your father," she said, severely, "and tell him the whole circumstance. Then we shall see what is to be done with you, and with the treasure."

With this veiled threat she left us. We snuggled our little bodies together. We were cold.

"I'll write to father myself, tomorrow, an' 'splain everything," I announced.

"D' you know," mused Angel, "I b'lieve I'll be a pirate, 'stead of a civil engineer like father. I b'lieve there's more in it."

"I'll be an engineer just the same," said I.

"I fink," murmured The Seraph, sleepily, "I fink I'll jus' be a bishop, an' go to bed at pwoper times an' have poached eggs for tea."

Chapter II: The Jilt

I

The day after the finding of the Treasure, Mary Ellen told us that she had seen Captain Pegg drive away from his son's house in a closed cab, before we had emerged from the four-poster. There had been a quarrel, the servants had told her, and in spite of all his son and daughter-in-law could do, the peppery Captain had left them, refusing to divulge the name of his destination.

"And they do say," Mary Ellen declared, "that he's no more fit to be wanderin' about the world alone than a babe unborn."

We smiled at the ignorance of women-servants, and speculated much on the Captain's probable new adventure. We were confident that he would return one day, loaded with fresh booty, and full of tales of the sea.

In the meantime, there was the Bishop. His house, as I have said stood between us and the Cathedral. It was a benign house, like a sleepy mastiff, and seemed to tolerate with lazy indifference the presence of its two narrow, high-backed neighbours, which with their cold, unblinking windows, looked like sinister, half-fed cats.

We had not been long at Mrs. Handsomebody's before we made friends with Bishop Torrance. As he walked in his deep, green garden, one morning, we three watched him enviously over the brick wall, that separated us. We were balanced precariously on a board, laid across the ash barrel, and The Seraph, losing his balance, fell headlong into a bed of clove pinks, almost at the Bishop's feet.

When his yells had subsided and explanations asked, and given, Angel and I were lifted over the wall, and shaken hands with, and given the freedom of the garden. We were introduced to the Bishop's niece, Margery, who was his sole companion, though we regarded, as one of the family, the Fountain Boy who blew cool jets of water through a shell, and turned his laughing face always upward toward the spires of the Cathedral.

Thus a quaint friendship sprang up, and, though the Bishop had not the dash, and boldness of Captain Pegg, he was an understanding and high-hearted playfellow.

I think The Seraph was his favourite. Even then, the