At last, when he was getting somewhat tired of this apparently useless performance, he brought up a handful of stones, not to as eyes differing from what he had seen for the past half hour. He spread them out for his uncle, now only two or three yards away, to examine.
"I guess you can put on your clothes now," said Mr. Martindale. "Why, hang it, man! you've thrown it away!"
Jack had pitched the stones back into the water.
"I thought you'd done, uncle," he said.
"So I have, and you're done too—done brown. D'you know you've thrown away a nugget worth I don't know how many dollars?"
"You didn't tell me what you were after," said Jack, somewhat nettled. "I couldn't be expected to know you were hunting for nuggets."
"No, you couldn't be expected: and that's just exactly what I brought you over to America for. When you've had the kind of smartening up I mean you to have, you won't talk about what's expected or not expected; you'll just figure it out that there's some reason in everything, and you'll use your own share of reason accordingly."
"All right, uncle," replied Jack good-humouredly. "I might have put two and two together, perhaps. At school, you see, they liked us to do as we were told without arguing. 'Theirs not to reason why'—you know. Shall I fish for that nugget?"
"Not worth while. A few dollars more or less are neither here nor there. I know what I want to know, and now I think we'd better be getting. Put your clothes on. Our brother Imbono has several times anxiously pointed to the sun. He evidently isn't comfortable at the idea of being benighted in these regions."
Screwing some of the sifted gravel into a bag of leaves, Mr. Martindale signed to the chief that he was ready to return. They reached the camp just as the sun was setting. In honour of the recent discovery, Mr. Martindale invited the chief to supper, and gave him a regale which astonished him. To see the white man bring peaches out of a closed pot made Imbono open his eyes; but the sensation of the evening was furnished by a bottle of soda water. When the stopper was loosed and the liquid spurted over, the chief shrank back in amazement, uttering a startled cry. Nando, not skilled in European politeness, guffawed uproariously.