“No; the top and bottom are both blown up in a curve with the bad gas generated.”
“Well, upon my word! Hear this, Wilton! Can anything be worse?”
“No. Who says home—Eastward Ho!” replied the gentleman addressed. “Look here, Lee; we’ve been talking it all over as we went well over the plantation this morning. Everything has gone wrong, and it’s madness to try any longer. Why, it’s five years since we agreed to join hands and lands and to work the fruit-farm into a success.”
“Yes,” said the doctor sadly; “and we’ve worked like slaves.”
“I’m afraid,” said the gentleman addressed as Bourne, “that no slaves would have worked half so hard.”
“That they would not,” cried Wilton. “There, it’s a failure, and we’d better get to ’Frisco and take passage by a sailing-vessel while we have the money. The plantation is going back to a state of nature, and we shall waste time by trying any more.”
“We ought to stay on for a bit,” said the doctor, as the two boys stood listening eagerly and forgetting all about the poor dinner to come.
“What!” cried Wilton, with a bitter laugh. “Who’d buy it?”
“Oh, we shouldn’t make much; only enough to pay our passages back to Liverpool. Some newcomer would be glad to have a place fenced in and planted, and with all the improvements we have made.”
“I, for one,” said Mr Bourne firmly, “will not be a party to selling such a miserable failure to a stranger.”