"Bad smells. Because my chemicals will be down in a few days. I try experiments, and sometimes strong odours arise." "Humph!" growled Uncle Paul. "Open the window, then. So your wife's Science, is she?" "Bless her: yes," cried Geoffrey, emphatically. "She's a tricksy coquette, though." "So's Madge, there," said the old man. "Is she?" said Geoffrey, looking at him, curiously. "I say, old gentleman, you are not very complimentary to your relatives; but I understand your hints: so look here. I'm not a lady's man, and your niece will be free from any pursuit of mine; and if she gets--what do you call it?--setting her cap at me, she'll give me up in four-and-twenty hours in disgust." "On account of Miss Science, eh?" said the old gentleman, grimly. "But I thought you said you were an engineer?" "I am." "Then--then, why are you here? got an appointment?" "Look here, Mr Paul," said Geoffrey, laughing, "as we are to be such near neighbours, and you evidently would like me to make a clean breast of it, here it all is:--I am a mining engineer; a bit of a chemist; I have no appointment; and I have come down to get one." "Then you've come to the wrong place, young man." "So Mr Penwynn told me." "Oh, you've been there, have you?" "Yes." "Seen his daughter?" "No, nor do I want to see her," said Geoffrey, throwing the end of his cheroot out of the window. "I'll take another of those cheroots, sir. They're strong and full-flavoured; I like them. So you think I've come to the wrong place, do you?" "Yes," said Uncle Paul, passing the blackest and strongest cheroot in his case. "Of course I do. The mining is all going to the dogs. The companies are one-half of them bankrupt, and the other half pay no dividends. The only people who make money are a set of scoundrelly adventurers who prospect for tin, and when they have found what they call a likely spot--" Here there was a pause, while the old gentleman also lit a fresh cheroot. "--They get up a company; play games with the shares, and get fools to take them, whose money goes down a big hole in the earth." "And never comes up again, eh?" "Never?" said the old man, emphatically. "Ever been bitten that way?" said Geoffrey, smiling. "Yes: once," snarled the other. "They got a hundred pounds out of me over a promising-looking affair--that mine down yonder on the point-- Wheal Carnac. Smooth-tongued scoundrel talked me over. Just such a fellow as you." "Indeed!" said Geoffrey, smiling. "Been a lesson to me, though, that I've never forgotten." "And yet there is money to be made out of mines," said Geoffrey, quietly. "With proper care, judgment, and good management there are plenty of lapsed undertakings that could be revived, and would pay their shareholders well." "Make Wheal Carnac pay, then, and my hundred pounds something better than waste paper." "I do not see why not," said Geoffrey, earnestly.