Then Mallard told Grainger of “Magnetic Villa.”
“Let us go and see this refined family,” he said with a laugh. “I don't know them, but from what my sub tells me, I daresay Miss Grainger could manage with them for a week. I know the house, which has two advantages: it is large, and is away from this noisy, dirty, dusty, and sinful town.”
“Very well,” said Grainger» as he took out his pipe, “will three o'clock suit? My sister might come.”
“Of course. Now tell me about Chinkie's Flat. Any fresh news?”
“Nothing fresh; same old thing.”
“'Same old thing!'” and Mallard spread out his arms yearningly and rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. “Just listen to the man, O ye gods! 'The same old thing!' That means you are making a fortune hand over fist, you and Jimmy Ah San.”
“We are certainly making a lot of money, Mallard,” replied Grainger quietly, as he lit his pipe and crossed his strong, sun-tanned hands over his knee. “My own whack, so far, out of Chinkie's Flat, has come to more than £16,000.”
“Don't say 'whack,' Grainger; it's vulgar. Say 'My own emolument, derived in less than one year from the auriferous wealth of Chinkie's Flat, amounts to £16,000.' You'll be going to London soon, and floating the property for a million, and—”
Grainger, who knew the man well, and had a sincere liking and respect for him, laughed again, though his face flushed. “You know me better than that, Mallard; I'm not the man to do that sort of thing. I could float the concern and make perhaps a hundred thousand or so out of it if I was blackguard enough to do it. But, thank God, I've never done anything dirty in my life, and never will.”
“Don't mind my idiotic attempt at a joke, Grainger,” and Mallard pat ont his hand. “I know you are the straightest man that ever lived. But I did really think that you would be going off to England soon, and that we—I mean the other real friends beside myself you have made in this God-forsaken colony—would know you no more except by reading of your 'movements' in London.”