s, and admirably suits our
easy consciences. But, I say, Jack, you _must_ break yourself off
talking slang. It will never do to have the secretary of the Great
Wheal Dooem Mining Company talk like a street boy. Besides, I hate
slang even in a blackguard--not to mention a black-leg--so you must give
it up, Jack, you really must, else you'll ruin the concern at the very
beginning."

Secretary Jack started into animation at this.

"Why, George," he said, drawing himself up, "I can throw it off when I
please. Look here--suppose yourself an inquiring speculator--ahem! I
assure you, sir, that the prospects of this mine are most brilliant, and
the discoveries that have been made in it since we commenced operations
are incredible--absolutely incredible, sir. Some of the lodes (that's
the word, isn't it?) are immensely rich, and upwards of a hundred feet
thick, while the part that runs under the sea, or _is_ to run under the
sea, at a depth of three thousand fathoms, is probably as rich in copper
ore as the celebrated Botallack, whose majestic headland, bristling with
machinery, overhangs the raging billows of the wide Atlantic, etcetera,
etcetera. O George, it's a great lark entirely!"

"You'll have to learn your lesson a little better, else you'll make a
great mess of it," said Clearemout.

"A muddle of it--according to my name and destiny, George," said the
secretary; "a muddle of it, and a fortune _by_ it."

Here the secretary threw himself back in the easy-chair, and grinned at
the opposite wall, where his eye fell on a large picture, which changed
the grin into a stare of surprise.

"What have we here, George," he said, rising, and fitting a gold glass
in his eye--"not a portrait of Wheal Dooem, is it?"

"You have guessed right," replied the other. "I made a few sketches on
the spot, and got a celebrated artist to put them together, which he has
done, you see, with considerable effect. Here, in the foreground, you
observe," continued the managing director, taking up a new white
pointer, "stands Wheal Dooem, on a prominent crag overlooking the
Atlantic, with Gurnard's Head just beyond. Farther over, we have the
celebrated Levant Mine, and the famous Botallack, and the great Wheal
Owles, and a crowd of other more or less noted mines, with Cape
Cornwall, and the Land's End, and Tolpedenpenwith in the
middle-distance, and the celebrated Logan Rock behind them, while we
have Mounts Bay, with the beautiful town