"Ah, Philip! if the dam has stood, our fortune's made, Philip."
"The dam's all right!" shouted Philip.
(Please to remember that there could be no doubt about the safety of the dam, Margaret's lips having insured it.)
"I hope so," shouted William Smith. "It'll be a bit of good luck to make up for a bit of bad. Mr. Hart, the theatre's down!"
Mr. Hart groaned.
"It needed but that," he murmured.
"You could play a piece now with real thunder and lightning," continued William Smith, at the top of his voice. "Why don't you speak? I suppose you're down in the mouth because your theatre's all to pieces! Never say die, man!"
Mr. Hart said nothing. This stroke of bad fortune coming so close upon the loss of his savings almost crushed him.
"We'll have it up again in less than a week," cried the plucky speculator. "William Smith's hard to beat!"
He really seemed to enjoy it. If those who had known him in London could have seen and heard him now, they would scarcely have believed. In the old country he was a mouse; in the new country he was a man. The wind was enough to blow them away, and it was impossible for them to remain longer in the open. They were already wet through, so they turned into Mr. Hart's room; and presently William Smith joined them, smiling, and fresh as a flower, with the rain glistening on his face and in his hair. He did not stop with them long, for he had his business to look after; his bars were thronged with gold-diggers, drinking the lightning and thunder down. Margaret ran up-stairs to her room, to change her dripping clothes, and when she presented herself again, she was dressed in a loose gown, and her long brown hair was hanging down her back.