“I think we’ll all go,” said Mr Temple. “I want to test a few minerals first. Afterwards I should like to go down and have a look at the waves.”
It was settled that the boys should wait, and Mr Temple at once lit a spirit-lamp from a strong box of apparatus he had brought down; and, taking out a blow-pipe, he spent some little time melting, or calcining, different pieces of ore and stone that he had collected, one special piece being of white-looking mineral that took Dick’s notice a good deal, for it seemed familiar.
“Isn’t that the stone you got in the place Will Marion showed to you, father?”
“Yes, my boy,” said Mr Temple; “why?”
“Only I thought it was,” said Dick. “Is it valuable?”
“I don’t know yet. Perhaps.”
“If it is valuable, will it do Will any good?”
“I don’t know yet about that either, my inquisitive young friend,” said Mr Temple.
“I think it ought if it’s any good,” said Dick after a pause, during which he had been watching his father attentively.
“Do you?” said Mr Temple coldly; and he went on calcining a piece of the soft white stone, and then placing it in a mortar to grind it up fine.