Peter: A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

Breen winced. First his truffles were criticised, and now his pet Johannesburg that Parkins was pouring into special glasses—cooled to an exact temperature—part of a case, he explained to Nixon, who sat on his right, that Count Mosenheim had sent to a friend here. Something must be done to head Hodges off or there was no telling what might happen. The Madeira was the thing. He knew that was all right, for Purviance had found it in Baltimore—part of a private cellar belonging some time in the past to either the Swan or Thomas families—he could not remember which.

The redheads were now in order, with squares of fried hominy, and for the moment Hodges held his peace. This was Nixon's opportunity, and he made the most of it. He had been born on the eastern shore of Maryland and was brought up on canvasbacks, soft-shell crabs and terrapin—not to mention clams and sheepshead. Nixon therefore launched out on the habits of the sacred bird—the crimes committed by the swivel-gun in the hands of the marketmen, the consequent scarcity of the game and the near approach of the time when the only rare specimens would be found in the glass cases of the museums, ending his talk with a graphic description of the great wooden platters of boiling-hot terrapin which were served to passengers crossing to Norfolk in the old days. The servants would split off the hot shell—this was turned top side down, used as a dish and filled with butter, pepper and salt, into which toothsome bits of the reptile, torn out by the guests' forks, were dipped before being eaten.

The talk now caromed from birds, reptiles and fish to guns and tackles, and then to the sportsmen who used them, and then to the millionaires who owned the largest shares in the ducking clubs, and so on to the stock of the same, and finally to the one subject of the evening—the one uppermost in everybody's thoughts which so far had not been touched upon—the Mukton Lode. There was no question about the proper mechanism of the traps—the directors were attending to that; the quality of the bait, too, seemed all that could be desired—that was Breen's part. How many mice were nosing about was the question, and of the number how many would be inside when the spring snapped?

The Colonel, after a nod of his head and a reassuring glance from his host, took full charge of the field, soaring away with minute accounts of the last inspection of the mine. He told how the “tailings” at Mukton City had panned out 30 per cent, to the ton—with two hundred thousand tons in the dump thrown away until the new smelter was started and they could get rid of the sulphides; of what Aetna Cobb's Crest had done and Beals Hollow and Morgan Creek—all on the same ridge, and was about launching out on the future value of Mukton Lode when Mason broke the silence by asking if any one present had heard of a mine somewhere in Nevada which an Englishman had bought and which had panned out $1,200 to the ton the first week and not a cent to the square mile ever afterward? The Chicago man was the most important mouse of the lot, and the tone of his voice and his way of speaking seemed fraught with a purpose.

Breen leaned forward in rapt attention, and even Hodges and Portman (both of them were loaded to the scuppers with Mukton) stopped talking.

“Slickest game I ever heard of,” continued Mason. “Two men came into town—two poor prospectors, remember—ran across the Englishman at the hotel—told the story of their claim: 'Take it or leave it after you look it over,' they said. Didn't want but sixty thousand for it; that would give them thirty thousand apiece, after which they'd quit and live on a ranch. No, they wouldn't go with him to inspect the mine; there was the map. He couldn't miss it; man at the hotel would drive him out there. There was, of course, a foot of snow on the ground, which was frozen hard, but they had provided for that and had cut a lot of cord-wood, intending to stay till spring. The Englishman could have the wood to thaw out the ground.”

“The Englishman went and found everything as the two prospectors had said; thawed out the soil in half a dozen places; scooped up the dirt and every shovelful panned out about twelve hundred to the ton. Then he came back and paid the money; that was the last of it. Began to dig again in the spring—and not a trace of anything.”

“What was the matter?” asked Breen. So far his interest in mines had been centred on the stock.

“Oh, the same old swindle,” said Mason, looking around the table, a grim smile on his face—“only in a different way.”

“Was it salted?” called out a man from the lower end of the table.