CHAPTER XLIII. AN IRRUPTION ON MARK CRAY. If anything could exceed the prosperity of the Great Wheal Bang Mine itself, it was the prosperity of those immediately connected with it. There was only one little drawback--ready money ran short. It had been short a long while, and the inconvenience was great in consequence; but the prolonged inconvenience was now approaching to such a height that even that sanguine spirit, Barker, even Mark Cray in his confiding carelessness, felt that something must be done to remedy it. Of course the cause of this will be readily divined--that the Great Wheal Bang's ore was not yet in the market. The heat of summer had passed, September was in with its soft air and its cool breezes, and still that valuable ore had not begun to "realise." It was obstinate ore, and it persisted in giving the greatest possible trouble before it would come out of its mother earth, where it had been imbedded for ages and ages. Those who understood the matter best, and the process of working these mines, tedious at all times, did not consider that any time was being lost; and it is more than probable that the impatience of Barker and Mark Cray alone caused the delay to appear unduly long. The money swallowed up by that mine was enormous, and Mark Cray got half-dismayed at odd moments. The shareholders were growing tired of the calls upon their pockets; yet they were on the whole confiding shareholders, believing implicitly in the mine and its final results. As a natural sequence, the mine's wants being so great, its mouth so greedy a one, Mark Cray and his friend could have the less money to play with on their own score: still they managed to secure a little for absolute personal wants, and tradespeople of all denominations were eager to supply anything and everything to the great men of the Great Wheal Bang. How entire was the confidence placed in the mine by these two masters of it may be seen from the fact of their depriving themselves of money to pour it into the ever-open chasm. They might so easily have diverted a little channel into their own pockets! True, it might not have been quite the honest thing to do, but in these matters few men are scrupulous. Mark had surreptitiously sent a few shares into the market and realised the proceeds; but he had done it with reluctance: he did not care to part with his shares; neither was it well that the Great Wheal Bang's shares should be afloat.