“Do you think it is tin?” said my father at last.
“No, sir, I don’t,” said Doctor Chowne, throwing down one of the pieces in an ill-humoured way. “I’ll take my oath it isn’t.”
“Oh!” ejaculated my father in a disappointed tone; “but are you sure?”
“Sure, sir? Yes. I’m not clever, and I’m better at gunshot wounds and amputations than at medical practice, but I do know a bit about metals and mining. Why, didn’t we touch at Banca in ’44 and see the tin mining there?”
“Yes,” said my father; “but I took no interest in it then.”
“Well, I did, my lad. Tin? No. Tin would either be stream-tin, looking like so much grey stone, or else tin in quartz, all little blackish grains.”
“Then this is—”
“Like the yellow iron you showed me once, and wanted to make me believe was gold—a mare’s nest?”
My father looked at him with his brow all wrinkled up.
“No,” said the doctor quickly, “it is not tin, Duncan, but very fine galena—”