“You’re even with Pat,” I says. “Levenstein got here a week ago and Pat don’t like his new son-in-law. There’s been the devil to pay.”
“I’m better even with him than that,” says Buck. “Brent, we’re millionaires.”
“Spit yer meaning out,” I says.
“Do you remember,” says he, “my saying to you last time we touched at Palm Island that the place seemed built of a sort of rock I’d never seen before, and my bringing a chunk of it away in my pocket? Well, what do you think that rock is but phosphate of lime.”
“What’s that?” I queries.
“Seagull guano mixed with the lime of coral,” he says, “the finest fertiliser in the world and worth thirteen to fourteen dollars a ton. How many tons would Palm Island weigh, do you think, and it’s most all phosphate of lime?”
I begins to sweat in the palms of my hands, but I says nothing and he goes on:
“Palm Island being a British possession, since an Irishman has discovered it and it lies to eastward of the German British line, I went to London, and I’ve got not only the fishing rights but the mining rights for ninety-nine years. I didn’t say nothing about the mining rights, said I wanted to start a cannery there since the fishing was so good, and an old cockatoo in white whiskers did the rest and dropped the mining rights in gratis like an extra strawberry. Then, coming through N’ York I got a syndicate together that’ll buy the proposition when they’ve inspected it. I’ll take a million or nothing,” says he.
“But, look here,” I says, “how in the nation did it all happen; how did you know?”
“Well,” says he, “it was this way. That chunk of rock I was telling you of, I stuck in my sea chest, and unpacking when I got back I gave it to little Micky Murphy who was in the room pretending to help me. He used it for a play toy.