‘Did you ever know me dishonest?’

’Pooh! what’s honesty?  There’s nothing so smart as honesty.  Whatever you got, you got a sure hold of.  That’s what you mean by honesty.  You was clever enough to take care as you had really got it.  Now about this Polyeuka business, I’ll tell you how it is.  I and Jack Adamson and another,’—­as he alluded to the ‘other’ he winked,—­’we believed in Polyeuka; we did.  D----- the cussed hole!  Well;--when you was gone we thought we’d try it.  It was not easy to get the money as you wanted, but we got it.  One of the banks down at Sydney went shares, but took all the plant as security.  Then the cussed place ran out the moment the money was paid.  It was just as though fortin had done it a purpose.  If you don’t believe what I’m a-saying, I’ve got the documents to show you.’

Caldigate did believe what the man said.  It was a matter as to which he had, in the way of business, received intelligence of his own from the colony, and he was aware that he had been singularly lucky as to the circumstances and time of the sale.  But there had been nothing ‘smart’ about it.  Those in the colony who understood the matter thought at the time that he was making a sacrifice of his own interests by the terms proposed.  He had thought so himself, but had been willing to make it in order that he might rid himself of further trouble.  He had believed that the machinery and plant attached to the mine had been nearly worth the money, and he had been quite certain that Crinkett himself, when making the bargain, had considered himself to be in luck’s way.  But such property, as he well knew, was, by its nature, precarious and liable to sudden changes.  He had been fortunate, and the purchasers had been the reverse Of that he had no doubt, though probably the man had exaggerated his own misfortune.  When he had been given to understand how bad had been the fate of these old companions of his in the matter, with the feelings of a liberal gentleman he was anxious to share with them the loss.  Had Crinkett come to him, explaining all that he now explained, without any interference from Euphemia Smith, he would have been anxious to do much.  But now;—­how could he do anything now?  ’I do not at all disbelieve what you tell me about the mine,’ he said.

’And yet you won’t do anything for us?  You ain’t above taking all our money and seeing us starve; and that when you have got everything round you here like an estated gentleman, as you are?’

There was a touch of eloquence in this, a soundness of expostulation which moved him much.  He could afford to give back half the price he had received for the mine and yet be a well-to-do man.