“O, a fallin’ star. I knew a man who wrote some poetry about one that fell in Australia. He called it ‘stardust,’ but I s’pose a hard-as-nails professor would call it—by the name that you do.” While speaking, Mundon was surveying the ground.
“I’ve got a scheme, Ben, to grade all this stuff ’cordin’ to its value.”
“How do mean?”
“Why we’ve had ’sperience enough to see that’d be the best way to economize our time and labor. We’ll assay it and grade it till we know ’bout where we stand.”
“It’ll be an awful lot of work to do it.”
“Yes, it’ll be tejus, but it’ll pay better in the end. We’ll—if you say so, Ben, ’course it’s your own business; but I’m jest tellin’ you how I’d do if ’twere mine—we’ll sep’rate the stuff ’cordin’ to size first, and then ’cordin’ to value.”
“It’s a good plan. Don’t defer to me any more—you idiot! It makes me feel so mean when you do it. You know as well as I do that I don’t know the first thing about this business.”
“You’re the boss, Ben,” Mundon laconically replied.
“I don’t doubt that the slag and muck and all the rest of it are valuable,” said Ben; “but the chimney—our golden chimney—is the thing we’re sure of now. Maybe the day’s cleanup ’ll be more, or maybe it’ll be less, but we know it’ll be gold!”