This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

his help. Then looking round as if searching for something, he had suddenly seized the largest pineapple from the brass rail in the window, thrust it upon the astonished Bindle, and fled into the back room.

For some seconds Bindle had stood looking from the fruit to the door through which his brother-in-law had disappeared, then, replacing it on the rack, he had quietly left the shop, muttering: "It takes a long time to get to know even yer own relations. Queer ole card, 'Earty."