“Specimen, Sep?” said my father. “Oh, that’s it, is it? Well, it doesn’t look worth all this trouble.”
“Duncan, what a man you are!” said Doctor Chowne pettishly. “I’ve said twice over, Did you get the deeds?”
“I beg your pardon, Chowne. Yes, of course. He wanted to put me off, said I’d better let them stop with him, and that there was no hurry, and that a little endorsing was wanted.”
“Oh, of course!” said the doctor.
“But when he saw that I was in earnest, and that I meant to wait for them, he set to work and got the business done—that is, all that was wanted. In fact, it was a mere nothing.”
“And he wanted to keep them in his charge unsigned, with the chance of making more of the estate to somebody else if that somebody else turned up.”
“Jonas Uggleston to wit?” said my father.
“Exactly. Duncan, old fellow, you see that you were just in time.”
“That’s what I felt, Chowne; but there the deeds are safe and sound; the Gap is thoroughly mine—my freehold.”
“And you may congratulate yourself on being the owner of a valuable lead and silver mine.”