“A soft metal. Here in this little phial is muriatic acid. Pour a drop on my nugget. The metal defies it. Now pour on your pyrites. See how it smokes and perishes. It cannot resist the acid. There are many other tests, but little needed. No metal, no earthly substance, resembles gold in the least.”
“Not to a Jew's eye,” whispered Robinson.
“And much I marvel that any man or even any woman who has been in a gold mine and seen and handled virgin gold should take mica” (here he knocked the mica clean off the table) “or pyrites” (here he spanged that in another direction) “for the royal metal.”
“I'll tell you what to do, Mary,” began Robinson, cheerfully. “Hallo! she is crying. Here is a faint heart.”
“Och! captain dear, Pat an' me we are kilt right out for want of luck. Oh! oh! We niver found but one gould—and that was mikee. We can't fall upon luck of any sort—good, bad or indifferent—that is where I'm broke and spiled and kilt hintirely. Oh! oh! oh!”
“Don't cry. You have chosen a bad spot.”
“Captain, avick, they do be turning it up like carrots on both sides of huz. And I dig right down as if I'd go through the 'orld back to dear old Ireland again. He! he! he! oh! oh! An' I do be praying to the Virgin at every stroke of the spade, I do, and she sends us no gould at all at all, barrin' mikee, bad cess to 't. Oh!”
“That is it. You are on two wrong tacks. You dig perpendicular and pray horizontal. Now you should dig horizontal and pray perpendicular.”
“Och! captain, thim's hard words for poor Molly McDogherty to quarry through.”
“What is that in your hand?”