"Arrah musha, but I think yes!"
"What?"
"Sure, if ye're askin', I'm believin' it's Willyum Gladstone happenin' down in your minin' hole."
"Huckleberries!"
The door flew open, Fayette rushed by as if he could not move half fast enough. It seemed to Cleena he cleared the stairs with two bounds, and an instant after she heard him hurrying into the cellar at the same headlong pace.
"Hmm. I thought that'd fetch him," she chuckled. Then she suddenly remembered that she had once heard the lad speak of using "giant powder," or some such explosive in his work of the underground passage. She had strictly forbidden this, and had carefully watched lest any suspicious material might be brought upon the premises. She had even persuaded Teamster John to examine the trench and the articles which Fayette had placed there. He had found nothing wrong, and the pick and the shovel had been so long disused that they had rusted. Of late Cleena had let William Gladstone play down there in the soft dirt, while she was busy at other things.
"Alanna, the day!"
Cleena followed her leader only a trifle less swiftly, and reached the top of the cellar stairs just in time to receive a whirling object plump in her arms. The object was the incipient statesman, and in a second more the half-wit had also reached the kitchen floor and had shut the door behind him.
"I'll teach him to interfere with my gold mine!"