“All right,” we replied together.
“Good!” said he. “Same here.”
After which laconic dialogue, silence ensued for the space of half an hour, while we read and re-read the welcome letters from home.
Letters from home! Nobody knows their right value until he reads them five thousand miles away from the hand that wrote them.
It was plain that my parents had great confidence in Jack, for they expressed no anxiety on my account, though they did intimate that it was rather a long time since they had heard from me. They also suggested that it was about time we came home again, though, if there should be a really good reason for our not returning at once, we were given permission to stay on.
They were too wise, however, to leave the question of the goodness of the reason to our prejudiced and immature opinions; Jack was to be the sole and only judge.
Jack, we found, had a letter from Percy’s father repeating these instructions, and having read it, he sat silent for five minutes, thinking, while Percy and I fidgeted about, waiting for his decision. At length he delivered judgment.
“Well, you fellows,” said he, regretfully, “I suppose you must go home.”
“Oh, no!” we both exclaimed together. “Not yet.”
“My instructions are to send you home,” Jack went on, “unless there is a good reason against it; and I’m afraid there’s no good reason. We’ve had a jolly outing; but from a business point of view it has resulted in nothing. From the day we started to this present moment we haven’t seen so much as a speck of gold.—What’s up?”