"Yes. But I like to bring good news myself. The specimens you sent have been assayed by first-class, reliable men. They'll do. No gold—but eighty per cent silver. Hey! P'r'aps you expected it."
But Mr. Dumphy could see plainly from Mrs. Conroy's eager face that she had not expected it.
"Silver," she gasped—"eighty per cent!"
He was mystified, but relieved. It was evident that she had not consulted anybody else, and that he was first on the ground. So he said curtly—
"What do you propose?"
"I don't know," began the lady. "I haven't thought"——
"Exactly!" interrupted Dumphy. "Haven't got any proposition. Excuse me—but" (taking out his watch) "time's nearly up. Look here. Eighty per cent's big thing! But silver mine takes gold mine to run it. All expense first—no profit till you get down. Works, smelting—cost twenty per cent. Here's my proposition. Put whole thing in joint-stock company; 100 shares; five millions capital. You take fifty shares. I'll take twenty-five—dispose of other twenty-five as I can. How's that? Hey? You can't say! Well—think of it!"
But all Mrs. Conroy could think of was two and a half millions! It stared at her, stretching its gigantic ciphers across the room. It blazed in golden letters on cheques,—it rose on glittering piles of silver coin to the ceiling of the parlour. Yet she turned to him with a haggard face, and said—
"But this—this money—is only in prospective."
"Cash your draft for the sum ten minutes after the stock's issued. That's business."