"I happen to own the adjoining one, therefore I am quite aware that such is the fact."
"Then your mine will be on fire next."
"Not so. I extinguished the fire in mine a fortnight ago."
At these words the noise rose to a regular tumult; the shareholders pressed round Ivan, and nearly suffocated him. The man is there who can extinguish the fire. The mine will soon be again in working order. Bondavara stands once more at par.
The bears had to retire. The joyful shareholders surrounded Ivan and carried him in triumph out of the hall.
That same evening a large meeting was held, at which Ivan, before an enormous audience, filling the room to suffocation, declared authoritatively that he had an infallible plan, which had, in fact, been tried on the Bondavara mine, and had put out the conflagration. He invited every one present to see the experiment tested next day in the open air, when it would be distinctly proved that his words were no idle boast.
The following morning, in presence of a large crowd, he fulfilled his promise, succeeding admirably in the demonstration. A funeral pile of coal and turf, over which petroleum had been poured, was set fire to, and when blazing to its greatest height was put out in a few minutes by some drops from a small bottle.
The jubilant public conducted Ivan back to the town in triumph, and at the next general meeting of shareholders it was resolved to offer him a remuneration of six hundred thousand gulden if he would undertake to bring the Bondavara mine into working order.
There were not wanting, however, plenty of opponents. Foremost there was Prince Waldemar, who possessed the largest proportion of shares, and who, nevertheless, offered the most determined opposition. He did everything to embarrass and obstruct Ivan's scientific propositions.
"I grant," he said, "that you may be able to put out with one bucket of fluid six cubit feet of burning coals; but consider for a moment that in the Bondavara pit, reckoning from the place where the explosion took place to the castle, there must be at least sixty thousand cubit feet of burning stratum. You must have, to meet this, ten thousand buckets of fluid ready to shoot over the mass. What machine have you that would be able for such an operation as this?"