The two members of the firm looked at one another.  After a pause one of them said: 

“Commission really must depend on how such a thing turned out.  They had little confidence in such statements, but would see the settler and put some questions to him.”

Clinton went out and introduced Meadows.  This happened just as Meadows had told him it would.  Outside the door Mr. Meadows suddenly put on a rustic carriage and so came in and imitated natural shyness with great skill; he had to be twice asked to sit down.

The firm cross-examined him.  He told them gold had been discovered within a stone’s throw of his land, thirty miles from Bathurst; that his friends out there had said go home to England and they will give you a heavy price for your land now; that he did hope to get a heavy price, and so be able to live at home—­didn’t want to go out there again; that the land was worth money—­for there was no more to be sold in that part; government land all round and they wouldn’t sell, for he had tried them (his sharp eye had seen this fact marked on Mr. Rich’s map).

“Well,” said the senior partner, “we have information that gold has been discovered in that district; the report came here two days ago by the Anne Amelia. But the account is not distinct as yet.  We do not hear on whose land it is found if at all.  I presume you have not seen gold found.”

“Could I afford to leave my business out there and come home—­on a speculation?”

The eyes of the firm began to glitter.

“Have you got any gold to show us?”

“Nothing to speak of, sir; only what they chucked me for giving them a good dinner.  But they are shoveling it about like grains of wheat, I assure you.”

The firm became impatient.

“Show us what they gave you as the price of a dinner?”

Meadows dug into a deep pocket, and chased into a corner, and caught, and produced a little nugget of quartz and gold worth about four pounds, also another of somewhat less value.

“They don’t look handsome, gents,” said he, “but you may see the stuff glitter here and there; and here is some of the dust.  I had to buy this; gave them fifty shillings an ounce for it.  I wish I had bought a hundred-weight, for they tell me it is worth three pound ten here.”

“May we inspect these specimens?”

“Why not, sir?  I’ll trust it with you.  I wouldn’t with everybody, though.”

The partners retired with the gold, tested it with muriatic acid, weighed it, and after a short, excited interview one of them brought it back and asked with great nonchalance the price of the land.

Meadows hung his head.

“Twenty thousand pounds.”

“Twenty thousand pounds!” and the partner laughed in his face.

“I don’t wonder you are surprised, sir.  I wonder at myself asking so much.  Why, before this, if you had offered me five thousand, I would have jumped into your arms, as the saying is; but they all say I ought to have twenty thousand, and they have talked to me till they make me greedy.”