“You bet,” said the digger. “Oh, yes, any Gawd’s quantity.” He laughed again. “You must think me pretty green, mister.” He continued to laugh. “How much for the lot?”
Tresco spread the gold over the surface of the dish in a layer, and, puffing gently but adroitly, he winnowed it with his nicotine-ladened breath till no particle of sand remained with the gold. Then he put the dish on the scales, and weighed the digger’s “find.”
“Eighty-two ounces ten pennyweights six grains,” he said, with infinite deliberation, and began to figure on a piece of paper. Seemingly, the goldsmith’s arithmetic was as rusty as the digger’s speech, for the sum took so long to work out that the owner of the gold had time to cut a “fill” of tobacco from a black plug, charge his pipe, and smoke for fully five minutes, before Tresco proclaimed the total. This he did with a triumphant wave of the pen.
“Three hundred and nine pounds seven shillings and elevenpence farthing. That’s as near as I can get it. Nice clean gold, mister.”
He looked at the digger; the digger looked at him.
“What name?” asked Tresco. “To whom shall I draw the cheque?”
“That’s good! My name?” laughed the digger. “I s’pose it’s usual, eh?”
“De-cidedly.”
“Sometimes they call me Bill the Prospector, sometimes Bill the Hatter. I ain’t particular. I’ve got no choice. Take which you like.”
“‘Pay Bill the Prospector, or Order, three hundred and nine pounds.’ No, sir, that will hardlee do. I want your real name, your proper legal title.”