“Well,” cried Mike, “can’t ye spake, and let us know how much me quarterings come to?”

The clerk, who was figuring, looked at the speaker with silent contempt, and did not even condescend to reply, much less hasten his movements.

“Your nugget,” said the clerk, at length, addressing Fred and myself, “weighs just fifty-one pounds two ounces, and if there is no quartz in the interior of the lump—­and I think that there is not—­at the present price of gold it is worth, in round numbers, about two thousand five hundred pounds sterling.  A pretty good day’s work, sirs.”

“Say it again,” cried Mike, all ready for another Irish break-down.

The clerk repeated the amount with much amiability.  He had just learned that Mike had an interest in the nugget, and his respect for the man increased in proportion to his wealth.

“Two thousand five hundred pounds sterling,” repeated Mike, in amazement.  “Who would have thought that there was so much money in the world?  I’ll ate nothing but paraties, and drink nothing stronger than buttermilk and whiskey hereafter.  Two thousand pounds and five hundred of ’em to make the figures look a little odd.  Ough! murder, won’t the old woman and the childers be plased to see me riding home in an illegant coach and four, dressed like a lord!”

The subject was one of so much importance that Mike, in defiance of the dignified-looking clerk, indulged in a hornpipe, and was only brought to his senses when told that he would be locked up by the policemen as a lunatic, unless he was more quiet.

“I’ll be like a lamb,” he replied; and then, after a moment’s quiet, he leaned over and whispered to the clerk, in a confidential manner,—­“If the nugget is worth two thousand five hundred pounds sterling, pray, what is me quarterings worth?  Answer me that, if ye can.”

We did not give the clerk time to make the calculation, but offered Mike, on a venture, a sum equivalent to two thousand seven hundred dollars for his quarterings, while we concluded to run the risk of the interior of the nugget being filled with quartz.  Mike accepted the proposition without delay, and merely taking a certificate of deposit, we returned to the store, counted out in sovereigns the amount that was due Mike, made him put his cross, in the presence of Mr. Critchet, to a paper certifying that he had been paid in full, and with the gold in his pocket, off he started for his nearest countrymen, for the purpose of treating every Irishman that he met, and getting rid of his sudden wealth as soon as possible.

I urged him for half an hour to let the larger portion of his funds remain in our hands, but he was obstinate, and feared trickery.  I then endeavored to persuade him to deposit all but a hundred sovereign in the government office, but strange to say, he was more fearful of the government concern than he was of our firm.  At length I got out of all patience, for I saw that, instead of devoting his fortune to his relatives, he was determined to have a spree, and I let him go without another word of remonstrance.