"I'm damned if I know what to make of you," the man muttered, "unless you're a hoptical delusion!"
"Underneath where I was standing—just here,"—and Hamar indicated the spot—"is water. Any amount of it, you have only to sink a shaft fifteen feet and you would come to it."
"Water!" the man laughed, "yes, there is any amount of it—on your brain, that's the only water near here."
"Then you don't believe me?" Hamar demanded.
"Not likely!" the man responded, "I only believe what I see! And when I see a face like yours holding out a potful of dollars, I know as how you've stolen them. Git!"—and Hamar flew.
But Hamar was not so easily nonplussed; not at least when he saw a chance of making money. Entering the garden, and keeping well out of sight of the gardener, he arrived at the front door by a side path, and with much formality requested to see the owner of the establishment. The latter happening to be crossing the hall at the time, heard Hamar and asked what he wanted.
Hamar at once informed him he was a dowser, and that, chancing to pass by the garden on his way to his hotel, he had divined the presence of water.
"I only wish there were," the gentleman exclaimed, "but I fear you are mistaken. I have attempted several times to sink a well but never with the slightest degree of success. I have had all the ground carefully prospected by Figgins of Sacramento Street—he has a very big reputation—and he assures me there isn't a drop of water anywhere near here within two hundred feet of the surface."
"I know better," Hamar said. "Will you get your gardener—who by the way was very rude to me just now when I spoke to him—to dig where I tell him. I have absolute confidence in my power of divination."
The owner of the property, whom I will call Mr. B. assented, and several gardeners, including the one who had so insulted Hamar, were soon digging vigorously. At the depth of fifteen feet, water was found, and, indeed, so fast did it begin to come in that within a few minutes it had risen a foot. The onlookers were jubilant.