“Come easy, go fast,” was the remark of an old German Uncle, who, having made a fortune by hard knocks at the anvil, looked with a quiet smile at these thousands in perspective. In regard to the _horses_, the old gentleman was right—but as the _money_ never came, I think his premises were altogether wrong. One thing is certain, real estate rose very rapidly in our vicinity at that time, and as several lots went off at spanking prices, to be kept out of our clutches, we may be said to have been benefactors to the sellers and conveyancers. So that _copper_—the vilest of metal—may, in some crucibles, be transformed into gold. But not to anticipate. * * * * * _Grubemout_ had been upon the mountain-side, which overlooks the delightful village of Fleeceington, for a month or more, making careful chiselings from rocks, and excavations at their sides. UPTOSNUFF carried his pick-axe and his basket. The “collection” gradually swelled upon their hands, until it became quite formidable; and the “choice specimens,” were without number, rich, and without reason, _rare_. DRAWITWELL, the host of “The Hawk and Buzzard,” had his eye upon their movements, and always made it a point to take a peep at their basket when they descended in the evening. He was an open-eyed sort of an old lark, who had had his own way in the village at election times and at trainings, by virtue of a colonelcy and aidship to the governor—a cheap sort of payment for service rendered—and he felt as if nothing of importance ought to transpire in the place, unless he had a hand in it. Drawitwell did not like the air of mystery with which his lodgers slipped the covered basket up stairs, after they had performed their ablutions; nor the roaring noise made overhead, as the “specimens” were poured into the two great chests, previously prepared; and he was just the man to get at the bottom of a mare’s nest. So, by virtue of appliances best known to himself, he contrived to get a look at the collected specimens, and made up his mind at once that the thing was too slily managed by half, and that if there was wealth in the rocks he would have a finger in the transaction. “_He would at any rate._” Crispin, the village cobbler, had thrown _his_ eyes from his lapstone, across the creek, and up the hill-side, to take note of the motions of “the wandering stone-crackers,” as he called them, and his brain was in a pother. The blacksmith had sharpened their pick more than once, which had put on edge his curiosity, and had “contrived to pick their brains, while they pecked the rocks,” as he jocosely remarked, and _he_ had smelt metal in their movements.