Avon Fantasy Reader No. 12 — page 112: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

chink in that old tomb. Well, there was this man keeping on saying he'd done it the best he could, and there was Palmer carrying on like all possessed about it. ‘Call that making a job of it?’ he says. ‘If you had your rights you'd get the sack for this. What do you suppose I pay ou your wages for? What do you suppose I'm going to say to the can and Chapter when they come round, as come they may do any time, and see where you've been bungling about covering the ole place with mess and plaster and Lord knows what?’ ‘Well, master, I done the best I could, says the man; ‘I don’t know no more than what you do ‘ow it come to fall out this way. [ taped it right in the ole,’ 1e says, ‘and now it’s fell out,’ he says, ‘T never sce. “‘Fell out?’ says old Palmer, ‘why it’s nowhere near the place. Blowed out, you mean’; and he pidlesd up a bit of plaster, and so did I, that was laying up against the screen, three or four feet off, and not dry yet; and old Palmer he looked at it curious-like, and then he turned round on me and he says, ‘Now then, you boys, have you been up to some of your games here?’ ‘No,’ I says, ‘I haven’t, Mr. Palmer; there's none of us been about here till just this minute’; and while I was talking the other boy, Evans, he got looking in through the chink, and I heard him draw in his breath, and he came away sharp and up to us, and says he, “I believe there’s something in there. I saw some- thing shiny.’ ‘What! I dare say!’ says old Palmer; ‘well, I ain’t got time to stop about there. You, William, you go off and get some more stuff and make a job of it this time; if not, there'll be trouble in my yard,” he says. “So the man he went off, and Paliner too, and us boys stopped be- hind, and I says to Evans, ‘Did you really see anything in there?’ ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I did indeed” So then I says, ‘Let’s shove something in and stir it wp. And we tried several of the bits of wood that was laying about, but they were all too big. Then Evans he had a sheet of music he'd brought with him, an anthem or a service, I forget which it was now, and he rolled it up small and shoved it in the chink; two or three times he did it, and nothing happened. ‘Give it me, boy, I said, and I had a try. No, nothing appeal Then, I don’t know why I thought of it, I'm sure, but 1 stooped down just opposite the chink and put my two fingers in my mouth and whistled—you know the way—and at that I seemed to think I heard something stirring, and I says to Evans, ‘Come away, I says; ‘I don’t like this.’ ‘Oh, rot,’ he says, ‘give me that roll, and he took it and shoved it in. And | don’t think ever I see any- one go so pale as he did. ‘I say, Worby,’ he says, ‘it’s caught, or else someone's got hold of it.’ ‘Pull it out or leave it, I says. ‘Come and let’s get off. So he gave a good pull, and it came away. Leastways most of it did, but the end was gone. Torn off it was, and Evans looked at it for a second and then he gave a sort of a croak and let it drop, and we both made off out of there as quick as ever we could. When we got 110 comicbooks.com