Then he talked at some length about the big “plant” which they expected to build, and how they would “treat” seventy millions (or billions, I forget which) of gallons of water daily.  In one year from that date, he predicted, if the plan received support, the gold taken every month from Broad Bay would be worth three hundred thousand dollars.  Mr. Snider licked his lips.  “Think of that, friends,—­three hundred thousand dollars a month!” Shares in this Company were on sale for five dollars each.  They would be placed on sale after the demonstration.  He now had the pleasure and the honor to introduce to them one who needed no introduction to an audience from Lanesport,—­the Hon. J. Harvey Bowditch.

Mr. Bowditch came forward with majestic tread.  He thrust his right hand into the lapel of his coat, and commenced, in the deep booming tones of a bass-drum.

“My friends,” he said, “I shall detain you here for just one moment.”

“The poet Byron,” he continued, “has written in words which must be forever immortal, of the deep and dark blue ocean.  He said,—­”

Mr. Bowditch talked for three quarters of an hour.  That was his idea of “just one moment.”  Several people went sound asleep, one man pitched forward out of his chair while asleep, and some of those in the back began to get up and tip-toe away.  At last Mr. Snider got him to stop—­by pulling at his coat-tails—­and they began to hand around the gold specimens.

That woke them up!  Deacon Chick came down from the stand with a neat little box, and walked around among the people, showing off the gold.  There were six nice, fat little nuggets—­smooth, and yellow,—­and delightful to handle.  Each was about as big as a postage-stamp, and about half an inch thick.  This was the gold which the Professor and Mr. Snider had extracted from the water, right there at Rogers’s Island, by their secret, chemical process.  It had been in tiny particles then, like dust, but they had sent it somewhere, and had it made into these nuggets,—­plump and pleasing!  They had a letter from someone in the Treasury to prove that it was solid and pure, and of the very best quality.  No one needed the letter.  The nuggets spoke for themselves,—­they were so heavy!  I held two of them, one in each hand, and weighed them.  We all held one or two of them, and felt of them, and got a great deal of pleasure out of them.

The people from Lanesport gathered around Deacon Chick, the men looked at the gold nuggets, weighed them, and smiled at each other.

“Looks like the real stuff,—­hey?”

“Looks like it to me, all right!”

Everybody was interested, brightened up, happy and good-natured.  They smiled and joked over the gold.  Only one man seemed at all troubled in his mind.

“There’s jus’ one thing,” I heard him say to two other men, “there’s jus’ one thing that kinder worries me.  If we go ahead and perdoose gold at this rate, we’re goin’ to flood the market!  Yessir!  Gold will get so common that the price of everything will go sky-high, an’ that’ll raise old Ned!”