“Do so, Pat. Is there anything I could get you?”
“No, sir, thank ye kindly. I don’t know of anything.”
Yes, they had to go back, for their time was up; yet Mr. Long was in despair, not knowing what to do about the minerals. He was confident that they were somewhere—but where? No one knew, and he couldn’t imagine.
“It’s too bad,” he cried, as his indignation grew irrepressible. “It’s too bad. Our expedition has been ill organized. I don’t blame anybody, but we’ve certainly had very bad luck. With only a week we have wasted or lost every day but one. Last Monday we were kept all day and all night at the wharf.”
“Wal, Mr. Long,” said Captain Corbet, “I s’pose you’re kind o’ blamin’ me; but what could I do? Ef a man has a babby, mustn’t he nuss it?”
“No, he musn’t,” said Mr. Long; “he must make his wife attend to household matters, and keep his engagements.”
Captain Corbet stared with a look of horror and astonishment at Mr. Long.
“Wal, sir,” he said, with modest firmness, “in my humble opinion, sir, a babby is a babby, an’ flesh an’ blood is flesh an’ blood; an’ I don’t care who says they ain’t. Ef you’d see that there babby, sir,” he continued, warming up in a glow of fond parental feeling,—“ef you’d a-seen that there babby, as I’ve seen him,—a crowin’, an’ a pullin’ of my har, an’ a sayin’, Ga-ga-ga,—‘you’d—
“Mr. Simmons,” said Mr. Long, suddenly, “have you hunted for the stones?”
“O, yes, everywhere.”