“Well, Balfour,” said Solomon, frankly, as soon as they were alone, “this talk reminds me of the matter that first introduced us to one another—­your purchase of that outlying bit of the Crompton property, Wheal Danes.”

[Illustration:  “I WILL GIVE YOU A THOUSAND POUNDS FOR THAT CROMPTON LOT.”]

“Ay,” replied the other, carelessly lighting another cigar.  It was quite wonderful to see how many cigars Mr. Balfour got through daily; you might have almost thought that he had been denied tobacco for years by his physician, and had only just been permitted to resume the habit.

“Yes; you disappointed me there immensely, I must confess.  I went down to the sale on purpose to secure it.”

“So you told me, or, at least, so I guessed from your manner; and yet I don’t know why you should have been so sweet upon it.  It’s only a bare bit of ground with a round hole in it, close by the sea.”

“That’s all,” said Solomon, puffing at his clay pipe.  “What on earth could have made you buy it?”

“Well, I told you once.  I lost my yacht off Turlock, when coming to England last autumn, and very nearly my life with it.  When one escapes with a whole skin from such a storm as wrecked me there, the first piece of dry land one comes to seems very attractive.  I happened to be cast ashore beneath that very spot, and so I took a fancy to it.  If I had been a good Papist I should have built a chapel there to my patron saint in gratitude for my preservation; as it was, I resolved to erect a villa for myself there.  It will have an excellent view, and the situation is healthy.  If you seek for any other reason for the purchase, I have none to give you; it was a whim, if you like, but then I can afford to indulge my whims.”

“This one cost you a good deal, however; you gave five hundred pounds for it, did you not?”

Balfour nodded assent.

“A great sum for a few barren acres,” said Solomon, thoughtfully.

“Yes; and so the trustees of the estate thought, Mr. Coe.  They closed with my offer sharp enough, and withdrew the lot from public competition; else, perhaps, I should have got it cheaper.”

“Not if I had been bidding against you,” observed the host, significantly.

“You don’t say so!  You were never shipwrecked thereabouts, were you?  Oh, I remember:  you were brought up in the neighborhood.  You had some tender recollection of the spot, perhaps, with relation to madame up stairs.  What creatures of sentiment you men of business sometimes are—­dear me!”

“I did live near the spot,” said Solomon, slowly, “though I should deceive you if I pretended that that had any thing to do with my wish to possess it.”

“You would not deceive me, my good friend,” answered Balfour, coolly; “but, as you were about to say, it would not be frank.  Let us be frank and open, above all things.”

“I wish to be so, I assure you,” was Solomon’s meek reply.  “When I offered you a hundred pounds for your bargain, I think I showed you that deception was no part of my nature.  In all matters of business I always go straight to the point at once.”