"That's Potch," Michael said.
"Potch?"
The small, round eyes, brown with black rims and centres, beginning to dull with age, winked over Potch, and in that moment Dawe Armitage was trying to discover what his chances of getting possession of the stone he had come to see, were with the man who had found it.
"Con—gratulate you, young man," he said, holding out his hand. "I've come, Lord knows how many miles, to have a look at that stone of yours."
Potch shook hands with him.
"They tell me it's the finest piece of opal ever come out of Ridge earth," the old man continued. "Well, I couldn't rest out there at home without havin' a look at it. To think there was an opal like that about, and I couldn't get me fingers on it! And when I thought how it was I'd never even see it, perhaps, I danged 'em to Hades—doctors, family and all—took me passage out here. Ran away! That's what I did." He chuckled with reminiscent glee. "And here I am."
"Cleared out, did y', Mr. Armitage?" Watty asked.
"That's it, Watty," old Armitage answered, still chuckling. "Cleared out.... Family'll be scarrifyin' the States for me. Sent 'em a cable when I got here to say I'd arrived."
Michael and George laughed with Watty, and the old man looked as pleased with himself as a schoolboy who has brought off some soul-satisfying piece of mischief.
"Tell you, boys," he said, "I felt I couldn't die easy knowing there was a stone like that about and I'd never clap eyes on it.... Know you chaps'd pretty well turned me down—me and mine—and I wouldn't get more than a squint at the stone for my pains. You're such damned independent beggars! Eh, Michael? That's the old argument, isn't it? How did y' like those papers I sent you—and that book ... by the foreign devil—what's his name? Clever, but mad. Y'r all mad, you socialists, syndicalists, or whatever y'r call y'rselves nowadays.... But, for God's sake, let me have a look at the stone now, there's a good fellow."