Ye fair, who turn a shop head over heels, maul sixty yards of ribbon and buy six, which being sent home insatiable becomes your desire to change it for other six which you had fairly, closely, and with all the powers of your mind compared with it during the seventy minutes the purchase occupied, let me respectfully inform you that the above business took just eight minutes, and that “when it was done, 'twas done.” (Shakespeare.)
“You have given too much, my friend,” said Mr. Clinton.
“Come to my inn,” was all the reply. “This is the easy part, the game is behind.”
After dinner. “Now,” said Meadows, “business. Do you know any respectable firm disposed toward speculation in mines?”
“Plenty.”
“Any that are looking toward gold?”
“Why, no. Gold is a metal that ranks very low in speculation. Stop! yes, I know one tip-top house that has gone a little way in it, but they have burned their fingers, so they will go no farther.”
“You are wrong; they will be eager to go on—first to recover the loss on that article of account, and next to show their enemies, and in particular such of them as are their friends, that they didn't blunder. You will go to them to-morrow and ask if they can allow you a commission for bringing them an Australian settler on whose land gold has been found.”
“Now, my good sir,” began Mr. Clinton, a little superciliously, “that is not the way to gain the ear of such a firm as that. The better way will be for you to show me your whole design and leave me to devise the best means for carrying it into effect.”
Up to this moment Meadows had treated Mr. Clinton with a marked deference, as from yeoman to gentleman. The latter, therefore, was not a little surprised when the other turned sharp on him thus: