“Chinamen, captain. They are too lazy to dig. They go about all day looking at the heaps and poking all over the camp. They have got eyes like hawks. It is wonderful, I am told, what they contrive to pick up first and last. What hats! Why, one of 'm would roof a tent.”
“Hurroo!”
“What is up now?”
“Hurroo!” And up came Mary McDogherty dancing and jumping as only Irish ever jumped. She had a lump of dim metal in one hand and a glittering mass in the other. She came up to the table with a fantastic spring and spanked down the sparkling mass on it, bounding back one step like india-rubber even as she struck the table.
“There, ould gintleman, what will ye be after giving me for that? Sure the luck is come to the right colleen at last.”
“I deal but in the precious metals and stones,” replied Isaac, quietly.
“Sure, and isn't gould a precious metal?”
“Do you offer me this for gold? This is not even a metal. It is mica—yellow mica.
“Mikee?” cried Mary, ruefully, with an inquiring look.
At this juncture in ran George, hot as fire. “There!” cried he, triumphantly to Robinson, “was I right or wrong? What becomes of your gold-dust?” And he laid a nugget as big as his fist on the table.