“No garbling, you think?”
“I’m sure there isn’t. No, old fellow, I hate my fortunate brother most bitterly, and I don’t love my father; but I’d sooner take their word than that of any one I know.”
“Humph!” ejaculated the lawyer. “Well, then, the mine is not quite played out!”
“Played out! Pish! It has never been worked properly. Only scratched and scraped. There’s plenty of ore to pay by following on the old workings with modern tackle, and a little fortune in re-smelting the old refuse that has been accumulating for fifteen hundred or two thousand years.”
“Yes, it is very old,” said Wrigley thoughtfully.
“Old! Why, no one knows how old it is. The Romans worked it, and I daresay the Phoenicians had a finger in it before them.”
“Go on, old fellow,” said Wrigley, laughing. “Can you prove that pigs of lead were got from it to ballast the ark?”
“Well, you needn’t believe it without you like.”
“But I do believe a great deal of it. There’ll be quite enough for us, if you mean business.”
“If I mean business! Why, of course I do. Do you suppose I am going to sit still and let my brother have all the cream of life? He’ll get all the old man’s money. Plenty without that. I’m not blind. Precious little for me there.”