“Oh yes, bless me,” said Jessop. “All the fat and gravy of life come to him.”
The young lawyer threw one leg over the other and clasped his hands about his knee.
“Ah! yes,” he said seriously, “the distribution of money and honour in this world is very unequal. Clive is on that mine, isn’t he?”
“Oh, yes; consulting engineer and referee scientific, and all the confounded cant of it. As for a good thing—well, I’m told not to grumble, and to be content with my commission and all the shares I can get taken up.”
“Does seem hard,” said Wrigley. “Only for a year or two, eh? And then a sale and a burst up?”
“Don’t you make any mistake about that, old man,” said Jessop sulkily. “It’s a big thing.”
“Then why wasn’t it taken up before?”
“Because people are fools. They’ve been so awfully humbugged, too, over mines. This is a very old mine that the governor has been trying to get hold of on the quiet for years, but he couldn’t work it till old Lord Belvers died. It has never been worked by machinery, and, as you may say, has only been skinned. There are mints of money in it, my boy, and so I tell you.”
Wrigley smiled.
“What is your commission on all the shares you place?”