"The minister tells me it is there. He's waiting for fine weather to start," said Pendoggat.
"The minister says he knows nothing about it. You put him up to the scheme," said the lean man.
Pendoggat shook his head and looked stupid. He did not seem able to understand that.
"You've got the money. Every penny of it, and we've come to make you fork out," spluttered the grocer.
Pendoggat could not understand that either.
"I've been writing every week, and hearing nothing, except always going to begin and never beginning," went on the fat grocer. "I've been worrying till I couldn't sleep, and till there ain't hardly an ounce o' flesh on my bones. I couldn't stand it no longer, and I says to my friend here, I'm a going down to see what their little game is, and my friend said he was coming too, and it's just about time we did come from what my nephew Eli tells me. Says you found this here mine and put him up to getting money to work it. Says he's given the money to you. Says you've been like a madman, and pulled him up here one night, and pretty near punched his blooming head off."
Pendoggat made up his mind that the grocer was an untruthful and a vulgar person. All that he said was: "I hope the minister hasn't been telling you that."
"Are you going to deny it?" cried the lean man.
"I don't understand you, gentlemen," said Pendoggat. "I'll take you down to the mine if you like. I don't know if nickel is to be found there. The minister says there's plenty, and I believed him."
The grocer was whirling round and round after the manner of a dancing dervish and huzzing like a monstrous bee. He felt that he was losing his savings, and that sort of knowledge makes a man dance. "What do he know about nickel? He's a minister of the Gospel, not a dirty miner," he howled.