"It's not that," Michael replied.
"Oh, well"—the old man's gesture disposed of the matter. He gazed at the stone entranced again. "But she's the koh-i-noor of opals, sure enough. But tell me"—he sat back on the sofa for a yarn—"what's the news of the field? Who's been getting the stuff?"
The gossip of Jun and the ratting was still the latest news of the Ridge; but Mr. Armitage appeared to know as much of that as anybody. Ed. Ventry's boy, who had motored him over from Budda, had told him about it, he said. He had no opinion of Jun.
"A bad egg," he said, and began to talk about bygone days on the Ridge. There was nothing in the world he liked better than smoking and yarning with men of the Ridge about black opal.
He was fond of telling his family and their friends, who were too nice and precise in their manners for his taste, and who thought him a boor and mad on the subject of black opal, that the happiest times of his life had been spent on Fallen Star Ridge, "swoppin' lies with the gougers"; yarning with them about the wonderful stuff they had got, and other chaps had got, or looking over some of the opal he had bought, or was going to buy from them.
"Oh, well," Mr. Armitage said after they had been talking for a long time, "it's great sitting here yarning with you chaps. Never thought ... I'd be sitting here like this again...."
"It's fine to have a yarn with you, Mr. Armitage," Michael said.
"Thank you, Michael," the old man replied. "But I suppose I must be putting my old bones to bed.... There's something else I want to talk to you about though, Michael."
The men turned to the door, judging from Mr. Armitage's tone that what he had to say was for Michael alone.
"I'll just have a look if that bally mare of mine's all right, Mr. Armitage," Peter Newton said.