"It might as well be now!" he paraphrased, to the tune of the age-whitened sextette from "Floradora." "And look at the sparkler! Look at it!"
Fairchild could do very little else but look. He knew the value, even in spite of flaws and bad coloring. And he knew something else, that Harry had confessed to having little more than five hundred dollars.
"But—but how did you do it?" came gaspingly. "I thought—"
"Installments!" the Cornishman burst out. "Ten per cent. down and the rest when they catch me. Installments!" He jabbed forth a heavy finger and punched Fairchild in the ribs. "Where's Mother 'Oward? Won't I knock 'er eyes out?"
Fairchild laughed—he couldn't help it—in spite of the fact that five hundred dollars might have gone a long way toward unwatering that shaft. Harry was Harry—he had done enough in crossing the seas to help him. And already, in the eyes of Fairchild, Harry was swiftly approaching that place where he could do no wrong.
"You 're wonderful, Harry," came at last. The Cornishman puffed with pride.
"I'm a cuckoo!" he admitted. "Where's Mother 'Oward? Where's Mother 'Oward? Won't I knock 'er eyes out, now?"
And he boomed forward toward the dining room, to find there men he had known in other days, to shake hands with them and to bang them on the back, to sight Blindeye Bozeman and Taylor Bill sitting hunched over their meal in the corner and to go effusively toward them. "'Arry" was playing no favorites in his "'ome-coming." "'Arry" was "'appy", and a little thing like the fact that friends of his enemies were present seemed to make little difference.
Jovially he leaned over the table of Bozeman and Bill, after he had displayed himself before Mother Howard and received her sanction of his selections in dress. Happily he boomed forth the information that Fairchild and he were back to work the Blue Poppy mine and that they already had made a trip of inspection.
"I 'm going back this afternoon," he told them. "There 's water in the shaft. I 've got to figure a wye to get it out."