“I tell you what!”—the Ohioan had raised his voice and enlarged his sphere of influence—“I tell you there’s a lot o’ poor prospectors would have been rich men to-day if only I’d discovered sooner how to make amalgam plates this easy and this cheap.”
“Cheap, is it?”
“Yes, a damned lot cheaper than losin’ half your gold. Cheaper than linin’ your rockers—yes, and your sluices, too, with silver dollars as some fellers did. Now, this little piece of copper”—he produced a new bit—“a child can turn that into an amalgam plate by my process. Here, let the lady show you.” Before Hildegarde knew what was happening, the fragment of metal was in her hand and the owner had tipped the tiny bottle till a drop of the liquid ran out on the copper. “Quick! Rub it all over.”
As she did so, she saw that Cheviot’s attention was now undividedly hers. He did not look as if he altogether approved her acting as show woman. But not to disappoint the inventor, Hildegarde rubbed the silvered tip of her finger lightly and evenly over the copper. “Why, yes!” she cried out. “Look!” And as she held up the miraculous result the Ohioan roared with satisfaction, “Ain’t I been tellin’ you?” The copper was turned into a sheet of silver. “Rub and rub as hard as you like now”—he passed the object-lesson round—“you can no more budge a particle of that stuff than you can rub off triple plate. And that’s what you want to line your rockers with!”
“Looks like that silverin’ business might be worth somethin’.”
“Worth a clean million,” says the Ohioan, as he pocketed his bottle of miracle and walked jauntily away in the sunshine.
Hildegarde and Cheviot, exchanging smiles, went on down the deck in his wake. But suddenly the Ohioan stopped and wheeled about in the direction of a voice that had just said: “No, siree, I ain’t worrittin’ with no Dingley and no nothin’ I ain’t never tried.” The inventor of amalgam-plated copper, as though he’d heard himself called by name, retraced his steps with a precipitation that nearly capsized Miss Mar. The gentleman who had just declined Dingley squared his shoulders and announced to all and sundry: “No, siree! Y’ got to show me. I’m from Missoura.” Hildegarde caught at Cheviot’s arm. “They’ve got hold of our saying!”
“Oh, that’s everybody’s saying now,” he answered. “I’ve heard it twenty times since I came on board.” She waited, incredulous, listening. “If I got any minin’ to do,” the man from Missouri went on, “give me Swain’s Improved Amalgamator every time. D’ye know what they done to test Swain’s Improved Amalgamator?”
“Nop.”
“Well, lemme tell yer. They took a gold dollar and they pulverized it.”