29 Now, if you live by the sea and are grown-up you know that if you find anything on the seashore (I don’t mean starfish or razor-shells or jellyfish and sea-mice, but anything out of a ship that you would really like to keep) your duty is to take it up to the coast-guard and say, ‘Please, I’ve found this.’ Then the coast-guard will send it to the proper authority, and one of these days you’ll get a reward of one-third of the value of whatever it was that you picked up. But two-thirds of the value of anything, or even three-thirds of its value, is not at all the same thing as the thing itself—if it happened to be the kind of thing you want. But if you are not grown-up and do not live by the sea, but in a nice little villa in a nice little suburb, where all the furniture is new and the servants wear white aprons and white caps with long strings in the afternoon, then you won’t know anything about your duty, and if you find anything by the sea you’ll think that findings are keepings. Edward was not grown-up—and he kept everything he found, including sea-mice, till the [p30landlady of the lodgings where his aunt was threw his collection into the pig-pail. [p 30 Being a quiet and persevering little boy he did not cry or complain, but having meekly followed his treasures to their long home—the pig was six feet from nose to tail, and ate the dead sea-mouse as easily and happily as your father eats an oyster—he started out to make a new collection. And the first thing he found was an oyster-shell that was pink and green and blue inside, and the second was an old boot—very old indeed—and the third was it. It was a square case of old leather embossed with odd little figures of men and animals and words that Edward could not read. It was oblong and had no key, but a sort of leather hasp, and was curiously knotted with string—rather like a boot-lace. And Edward opened it. There were several things inside: queer-looking instruments, some rather like those in the little box of mathematical instruments that he had had as a prize at school, and some like nothing he had ever seen before. And in a deep groove of the russet soaked velvet lining lay a neat little brass telescope. T-squares and set-squares and so forth are of little use on a sandy shore. But you can always look through a telescope.
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