`` Too late for that , I am afraid , Mr. Brown , '' replied Peter . `` If I make it new , it will be new inside and out , from the cellar upward . '' `` Had not you better let me take the job ? '' said Mr. Brown , significantly . `` Not yet , '' answered Peter , hastily shutting the window ; for ever since he had been in search of the treasure he hated to have people stare at him . As he drew back , ashamed of his outward poverty , yet proud of the secret wealth within his grasp , a haughty smile shone out on Peter 's visage with precisely the effect of the dim sunbeams in the squalid chamber . He endeavored to assume such a mien as his ancestor had probably worn when he gloried in the building of a strong house for a home to many generations of his posterity . But the chamber was very dark to his snow-dazzled eyes , and very dismal , too , in contrast with the living scene that he had just looked upon . His brief glimpse into the street had given him a forcible impression of the manner in which the world kept itself cheerful and prosperous by social pleasures and an intercourse of business , while he in seclusion was pursuing an object that might possibly be a phantasm by a method which most people would call madness . It is one great advantage of a gregarious mode of life that each person rectifies his mind by other minds and squares his conduct to that of his neighbors , so as seldom to be lost in eccentricity . Peter Goldthwaite had exposed himself to this influence by merely looking out of the window . For a while he doubted whether there were any hidden chest of gold , and in that case whether it was so exceedingly wise to tear the house down only to be convinced of its non-existence . But this was momentary . Peter the Destroyer resumed the task which Fate had assigned him , nor faltered again till it was accomplished . In the course of his search he met with many things that are usually found in the ruins of an old house , and also with some that are not . What seemed most to the purpose was a rusty key which had been thrust into a chink of the wall , with a wooden label appended to the handle , bearing the initials `` P.G. '' Another singular discovery was that of a bottle of wine walled up in an old oven . A tradition ran in the family that Peter 's grandfather , a jovial officer in the old French war , had set aside many dozens of the precious liquor for the benefit of topers then unborn . Peter needed no cordial to sustain his hopes , and therefore kept the wine to gladden his success . Many half-pence did he pick up that had been lost through the cracks of the floor , and some few Spanish coins , and the half of a broken sixpence which had doubtless been a love-token . There was likewise a silver coronation medal of George III .
But old Peter XXXXX 's strong-box fled from one dark corner to another , or otherwise eluded the second Peter 's clutches till , should he seek much farther , he must burrow into the earth .
Goldthwaite III P.G. Peter Spanish half-pence love-token sixpence sunbeams topers