"It will be easy to hoodwink this boy. He is inexperienced, and will swallow all I say."
"Well," he said, aloud, with a change of manner, "that's my partner's affair, not mine. Now, young man, what have you to say to me?"
"How is the mine doing, Mr. Fox?"
Simeon Fox screwed up his face into a doleful expression, and shook his head.
"Badly," he answered.
"Doesn't it come up to your expectations?"
"No. You can tell Mr. Bradford that we were badly taken in when we bought it."
"You paid ten thousand dollars, Mr. Bradford tells me."
"Yes; and half the money is thrown away."
"You don't consider it worth what was paid, then?"