“Yes, you know, g, r, i, n, d, s, t, o, n, e, grinstun, for sharpenin’ tools on; turn ’em with a handle and pour water on top.  Now, sir, hevery farm ’ouse ’as got to ’ave a grinstun, and there’s ’ow many farm ’ouses in Canidy? wy, ’undreds of thousands.  You see, there’s money in it.  Let me find a grinstun quarry and I’m a made man.  And wot’s more, I’ve found the grinstun quarry.”

“You have?  Where?” asked the dominie.

The working geologist drew off, and playfully planted the forefinger of his right hand on the side of his upturned nose, saying “Walker!” Then he relented, and, reapproaching his companion, said:  “Honour bright, now, you’re no workin’ geologist, lookin’ out for the blunt?  You’re a collector of Favosites Wilkinsoma, Stenopora fibrosa, Asaphus Canadensis, Ambonychia radiata, Heliopora fragilis, and all that rot, ain’t you now?”

“I certainly seek to make no money out of science, and am a lover of the fossil records of ancient life in our planet, but, above all, I assure you that I would no more think of betraying your confidence than of picking your pocket.  If you have any doubts, do not make me your confidant.”

“Hall right, hold cock, I mean, my dear sir.  You’re safe has a church.  There’s a ’undred hacre lot hup in the township of Flanders, has full of grinstuns as a hegg’s full of meat.  It belongs to a Miss Do Please-us, but who the dooce she is, I dunno.  That’s just wot I’m a-goin’ to find hout.  If she hain’t paid her taxes, bein’ hon the non-resident roll, I maybe hable to pick hup the land for less than ten dollars, and it’ll bring me hin tens of thousands.  Then I’ll skip back to hold Hingland and cut it fat.”

Coristine was not so taken up with Muggins that he failed to overhear the conversation.  He did not catch it all, but he learned that a lady, a maiden lady, whose name mediated between Jewplesshy and Do Please, owned valuable mineral lands, of which the working geologist intended to deprive her by unfair means.  Miss Do-Please-us was nothing to him, but justice was something, and the man Rawdon was an unutterable cad.  How Wilkinson could take any pleasure in his society he could not understand.  He had a good mind to chuck the dominie’s stick into the next creek and let it float to Jericho.  He did throw it away along the road, but Muggins brought it back.  Deserted by his bosom friend for a common, low down cad like that; Oh, by Jove!  He strode along in silence, while Muggins, his only friend, came and rubbed himself against his leg.  No, he would not give in to fate in the shape of a Rawdon.  He had important secrets regarding the welfare of two women, that Providence seemed to have thrown in his way, in his possession.  If Wilks turned traitor, he could break the pact, and make one of these women happy.  Pity he wasn’t a Turk to take care of the pair of them.  Night had fallen, but the moon shone out and the stars, and it was very pleasant walking, if only Wilkinson would give the least hint that he was conscious of his friend’s existence.  But the schoolmaster was happy with the mining adventurer, who knew his man well enough to mix a few fossils with the grinstuns.