"Gold?" repeated Aunt Charlotte, rather taken aback. "A gold mine, I suppose you mean?"
"The hugest gold-mine in the world," replied the vicar, enjoying her evident perplexity. "An inexhaustible gold mine. A gold mine without limits."
"But where—whereabouts is it?" cried Aunt Charlotte.
"All around you," said the vicar, waving his hands vaguely in the air. "Not in any country at all, but everywhere else. In the ocean."
"Gold in the ocean!" ejaculated the puzzled lady, dropping her knitting on her lap, and gazing helplessly at her financial mentor.
"Gold in the ocean—precisely," affirmed that gentleman in an impressive voice. "It has been discovered that sea-water holds a large quantity of gold in solution, and that by some most interesting process of precipitation any amount of it can be procured ready for coining. I got a prospectus of the scheme this morning from Shark, Picaroon & Co., Fleece Court, London, and I've brought it for you to read. A most enterprising firm they seem to be. You'll see that it's full of very elaborate scientific details—the results of the analyses that have been made, the cost of production, estimates for machinery, and I don't know what all. I can't say I follow it very clearly myself, for the clerical mind, as everybody knows, is not very well adapted to grasping scientific terminology, but I can understand the general tenor of it well enough. It seems to me that the enterprise is promising in a very high degree."
"How very remarkable!" observed Aunt Charlotte, as she gazed at the tabulated figures and enumeration of chemical properties in bewildered awe. "And you think it a safe investment?"
"I do," replied Mr Sheepshanks, "but don't act on my opinion—judge for yourself. What's the amount you have to invest—two thousand pounds, isn't it? Well, I believe that you'd stand to get an income to that very amount by investing just that sum in the undertaking. Look what they say overleaf about the cost of working and the estimated returns. It all sounds fabulous, I admit, but there are the figures, my dear lady, in black and white, and figures cannot lie."
"I'll write to my bankers about it this very night," said Aunt Charlotte, folding up the prospectus and putting it carefully into her pocket. "It's evidently not a chance to be missed, and I'm most grateful to you, dear Mr Sheepshanks, for putting it in my way."
"Always delighted to be of service to you—as far as my poor judgment can avail," the vicar assured her with becoming modesty. "Ah, it's wonderful when one thinks of the teeming riches that lie around us, only waiting to be utilised. There was another scheme I thought of for you—a scheme for raising the sunken galleons in the Spanish main, and recovering the immense treasures that are now lying, safe and sound, at the bottom of the sea. Curious that both enterprises should be connected with salt water, eh? And the prospectus was headed with a most appropriate text—'The Sea shall give up her Dead.' That rather appealed to me, do you know. It cast an air of solemnity over the undertaking, and seemed to sanctify it somehow. However, I think the other will be the best. Well, Austin, and what are you reading now?"