suppose you have anything to
say that my son may not hear."

"Oh, very well, then, sir, it's this here. Old Dix--Loyer Dix--sent me
here, ever so long ago, to spy out and report on your mine, and I did;
and both Dix and Loyer Brownson, as they're partners now, finding it a
likely spec, wanted to buy it, but you wouldn't sell, and worked it
yourself."

"Well, sir, what of that?"

"Oh, only that they were disappointed, and they became friends after,
and sent me here to get took on and report everything."

"Ah, I see," said the Colonel, quietly; "a spy in the camp."

"Yes, sir," said the man, grinning.

"And you reported everything to them?"

"Yes, sir, o' course; they paid me to, and so I did."

"And took our money, too!" said Gwyn, indignantly.

"Oh, but I worked for that, Mr Gwyn, sir, and worked hard."

"Exactly," said the Colonel, smiling; and seeing that it was apparently
taken as a good joke, Dinass grinned widely.

"Then they got more and more disappointed as they found out what a prize
they'd let slip through their fingers; and at last got so wild that,
when I went to report to 'em one Sunday, they asked me if I couldn't do
something to spoil your game."

"On a Sunday, eh?" said the Colonel.

"Oh, yes, it was on a Sunday, sir. So I said I'd try and think it out;
and at last I did, and went and told 'em I thought I could let the water
in and spoil the mine, and then they'd be able to buy it cheap."

"And what did they say?"

"Oh, they both coughed and rubbed their hands, and said it would be too
shocking a thing to do, and that I should be bringing myself under the
law, and all on in that way, pretending like to make me feel that they
didn't want me to do it, but egging me on all the time."

"Ah, I see," said the Colonel, while Gwyn's teeth gritted together with
rage.

"I wasn't going to shilly-shally, so I ast 'em downright if I should do
it, and `Oh, dear no,' says they, they couldn't think of such a thing;
and little Dix says, `Of course, as we promised, if we had succeeded in
buying the mine for our company through your reports we should have
given you the situation of captain of the working and a hundred pounds;
but we couldn't think of encouraging such criminal ideas as those you
'mulgated. Let me see,' he says, `it was to be a hundred pounds, warn't
it?'

"`Yes,' I says, `it was.'

"`Exactly,' he says, `but we haven't got the mine, so we wish you
good-morning,' which was like rene