"When did you get it?"
"Two years ago. A young mining engineer in San Hermano met me at a party given at the University. He wanted me to put him in touch with an American financing outfit. On a field trip he had undertaken as a student, the young engineer inadvertently stumbled across a treasure in manganese. The deposits lay in an area he alone could reveal, and for a consideration and a share in the profits, he was willing to lead the right parties to the site of his discovery.
"I became the right party," Margaret said. "The soy is growing over a fortune in manganese."
"What happened to the young engineer?"
"He's in the States. I got him a scholarship in a good mining school. When he gets out, he'll be able to run the works down here."
"You don't miss a trick, do you?"
"Darling," she laughed, "my grandfather didn't come up from a plow on his muscles alone. But why don't you ask me why I'm not mining my manganese now?"
"I suppose that's where the politics comes in," he said.
"Now you're catching on. You see, Matt, anyone who didn't know the score down here might start mining like mad. There's a war on, the Germans have grabbed most of Russia's manganese fields, and Russia had a practical corner on the world's manganese supply. It's almost worth its weight in platinum today."
"Then why in the hell don't you cash in?"