“Then what are you going to West Africa for?”
“For the voyage. For the scenery. For the chance of big game in the back country. To drink some of that champagne I have ordered, and to smoke a few of those cigarettes which I sent aboard. I shall read all the latest books that I haven’t had time to peruse here in London. By the way, is the neighborhood of our mine a healthy locality?”
“I should say it was rather feverish along the coast, but up toward the hills I think it as healthy as Hampstead.”
“I shall induce a doctor friend of mine to come with us. I’m glad I thought of that. If you indulge in your predilection for coercion, giving free rein to your passion for fighting, a surgeon will be necessary for amputations, the dressing of wounds, and generally useful in attending to those exciting incidents that follow in the train of a conqueror like yourself, who believes in brute force rather than in alert brains.”
“Then I am to set this copper mine of yours in operation down in Cornwall?”
“Exactly. And leave a competent manager to engage the men, renew the machinery, and all that.”
“Is there to be any limit in the expenditure?”
“Limit? Of course there is to be a limit. Aren’t we always limiting expenditure? Isn’t my life spent in putting a check on the outgoings? Yes, you will instruct the new manager that this is merely a tentative experiment of mine, and that he is not to purchase machinery wholesale, nor engage many miners, but merely to test the capabilities of the copper vein, and smelt as much of the ore as he can until you return.”
“Of course it’s no business of mine, my lord, but it strikes me that this is an unnecessary and losing venture. The copper industry of Cornwall has been steadily decreasing in value, and I doubt if there are half as many copper mines in operation as there were ten years ago.”
“Oh, Peter, Peter, how little of the foresight of your saintly namesake do you possess! Does not your imagination see the little harbor of Portreath, which means the sandy cove? Of course it doesn’t, for you are probably ignorant that such a port exists. Our smelter is situated near this marine haven of rest. Stir up your fancy, my boy, and see in your mind’s eye the steamer Rajah, loaded with ore, but renamed the Blue Peter, floating majestically into Portreath. What more natural than that the grasping Stranleigh should own another copper mine where there is no smelter, and that this ship brings copper ore to our Cornwall furnace? The Blue Peter shall probably first put into Plymouth, where she is less likely to be recognized by seafaring folk than would be the case at Southampton. We will there discharge the crew, giving every man double pay. We will compensate the captain and his officers, sending everybody away happy. Then we will engage another captain and another crew, who know nothing of where the steamer has come from, and thus we sail round Land’s End, and put in to little Portreath.”