Mr Chynoweth was seated at his desk, with the heavy flap resting upon his head. The cards were dealt out in four packs, turned up so as to be beneath his eye, and it seemed as if some very particular hand was being played out; but Mr Chynoweth's thoughts were wandering, and for quite half-an-hour he did not move a card. "Curse him!" he said; and then there was another long pause, during which Mr Chynoweth's thoughts still went on wandering. "Hah!" he ejaculated at last; "he seems to hold all the trumps, and beats us at every game. I don't know that I like the governor, but he has always been just to me, and paid me like a man, and trusted me. Yes, he has always trusted me, and I'm growing old in his service, and I can't bear to see things going to the dogs. Yes, he holds all the trumps somehow, and he'll win the rubber." There was another pause, during which Mr Chynoweth impatiently packed the cards, put them away, and shut down the heavy flap of his desk before taking up his slate, and sadly rubbing it with the piece of sponge attached by a string. "Win the rubber, that's what he'll do. He's got the governor into a regular hole, and under his thumb, and it seems that he'll marry Miss Rhoda after all. Curse the mines! I wish he'd never touched them. An old fool! Hadn't he had experience enough of what comes to those who dabble in mines? It's wonderful! I shall be throwing my own poor savings down next like poor Rumsey, and--talk of the--Morning, Rumsey." "Ah, Chynoweth!" said Dr Rumsey, entering the office with his fishing-rod in his hand, and his creel hanging from his shoulder. "Nice morning." "Beautiful. How many trout?" "Not a brace," said the doctor, drawing the basket round, and peering in at the hole disconsolately. "One miserable little fellow, that's all. Chynoweth, I'm regularly out of luck." "Ah, yes," said Chynoweth; "you always do seem to hold bad hands." "Wretched," said the doctor, with a grim smile; "and the money comes in horribly." "Always does when you want it." "Always," asserted the doctor, and there was another pause. "By the way, Chynoweth," he said at last, as the clerk went on polishing his slate, "I hear that Wheal Carnac was sold in London the other day." "Yes." "Who bought it?" "Don't know. We haven't heard. Deposit's paid, and all that sort of thing. That's all we know at present." "Do you--do you think that I could get fifty pounds lent me on those shares now?" said the doctor, hesitatingly. Chynoweth shook his head. "But I paid down five hundred for them--my wife's money." "My dear Rumsey," said Chynoweth, "you couldn't raise fifty shillings upon them." The doctor raised the lid of his basket now, and gazed in at the unfortunate trout. "It's very hard," he said, as if addressing the fish. "My expenses are so large." "Ten times mine," said Chynoweth, "I dessay." "Do you--do you think Mr Penwynn would make me an advance, Chynoweth? I'll deposit the shares with him."