“Don’t cry.  You have chosen a bad spot.”

“Captain, avick, they do be turning it up like carrots on both sides of huz.  And I dig right down as if I’d go through the ’orld back to dear old Ireland again.  He! he! he! oh! oh!  An’ I do be praying to the Virgin at every stroke of the spade, I do, and she sends us no gould at all at all, barrin’ mikee, bad cess to ’t.  Oh!”

“That is it.  You are on two wrong tacks.  You dig perpendicular and pray horizontal.  Now you should dig horizontal and pray perpendicular.”

“Och! captain, thim’s hard words for poor Molly McDogherty to quarry through.”

“What is that in your hand?”

“Sure it is an illigant lump of lead I found,” replied poor Mary; the base metal rising in estimation since her gold turned out dross.  “Ye are great with the revolver, captain,” said she, coaxingly, “ye’ll be afther giving me the laste pinch of the rale stuff for it?”

Robinson took the lump.  “Good heavens! what a weight!” cried he.  He eyed it keenly.  “Come, Mr. Levi,” cried he, “here is a find; be generous.  She is unlucky.”

“I shall be just,” said the old man gravely.  He weighed the lump and made a calculation on paper, then handed her forty sovereigns.

She looked at them.  “Oh, now, it is mocking me ye are, old man;” and she would not take the money.  On this he put it coolly down on the table.

“What is it at all?” asked she, faintly.

“Platinum,” replied Isaac, coldly.

“And a magnificent lump of it!” cried Robinson, warmly.

“Och, captain! och, captain, dear! and what is plateenum at all—­if ye plaze?”

“It is not like your mica,” said Isaac.  “See, it is heavier than gold, and far more precious than silver.  It has noble qualities.  It resists even the simple acid that dissolves gold.  Fear not to take the money.  I give you but your metal’s value, minus the merchant’s just profit.  Platinum is the queen of the metals.”

“Och, captain, avick! och! och! come here till I eat you!” And she flung her arm round Robinson’s neck, and bestowed a little furious kiss on him.  Then she pranced away; then she pranced back.  “Platinum, you are the boy; y’are the queen of the mitals.  May the Lord bless you, ould gentleman, and the SAINTS BLESS YOU! and the VIRGIN MARY BLESS YOU!"* And she made at Isaac with the tears in her eyes, to kiss him; but he waved her off with calm, repulsive dignity.  “Hurroo!” And the child of Nature bounded into the air like an antelope, and frisked three times; then she made another set at them.  “May you live till the skirts of your coat knock your brains out, the pair of ye! hurroo!” Then with sudden demureness, “An’ here’s wishing you all sorts of luck, good, bad an’ indifferent, my darlin’s.  Plateenum foriver, and gould to the Divil,” cried she, suddenly, with a sort of musical war-shout, the last words being uttered three feet high in air, and accompanied with a vague kick, utterly impossible in that position except to Irish, and intended, it is supposed, to send the obnoxious metal off the surface of the globe forever.  And away she danced.