'How did you come to learn its value?'
'By visiting the mine. Wentworth and I went together to see it.'
'Oh, is Wentworth also a mining expert?'
'No; he is an accountant in London.'
'Both of you were sent out by the London Syndicate, I understand, to look after their mines, or the mines they thought of purchasing, were you not?'
'We were.'
'And you spent your time in looking up other properties for yourselves, did you?'
Kenyon reddened at this question.
'My dear sir,' he said, 'if you are going to talk in this strain, you will have to excuse me. We were sent by the London Syndicate to do a certain thing. We did it, and did it thoroughly. After it was done the time was our own, as much as it is at the present moment. We were not hired by the day, but took a stated sum for doing a certain piece of work. I may go further and say that the time was our own at any period of our visit, so long as we fulfilled what the London Syndicate required of us.'
'Oh, I meant no offence,' said Longworth. 'You merely seemed to be posing as a sort of goody-goody young man when I spoke of mining swindles, so I only wished to startle you. How much have you to pay for the mine—that is the mica-mine?'