"Are you willing to go down the mine as far as you can go, Mr Trethick--I mean for water--and to see what tokens you can find of tin ore?" "Yes," said Geoffrey, "I'll go down again if you like." "Again?" "Yes; I've been down as far as I could go." "You have, Mr Trethick?" "Yes, sir," said Geoffrey, smiling, "I have." "But right down to the water?" "Right down into it, sir," replied Geoffrey, laughing. "I had a regular ducking, for my companion let the rope slip." "Do you mean to tell me, Mr Trethick, that you made the descent of Wheal Carnac?" "To be sure I do, sir. Look here, Mr Penwynn, I took rather a fancy to that place. Every thing is so thorough and well done. Then I met with a rough mining fellow, one Amos Pengelly. Know him?" Mr Penwynn nodded. "He is sanguine about the mine, and asked me to examine it. I did so as far as I could, and then one night we procured a rope, and I rigged up a ship's block on a stoutish cross-beam, took a lantern, and Pengelly let me down." "By himself?" "Oh, yes! sir; he's as strong as a horse. But he did duck me." "Mr Trethick," said the banker, pulling out his pocket-handkerchief, "do you mean to tell me that you trusted to one man to lower you down that pit?" "I do, Mr Penwynn, and a precious black pit it is; and, as I tell you, he let me down rather too far, but not till I had had a good look round." "And what did you discover?" said the banker, wiping the palms of his wet hands. "Nothing," said Geoffrey, bluntly. "No more than I could find out on the heap of _debris_. No thorough examination could be made without the mine were pumped out." "And that would cost?--" "Fifty or a hundred pounds, perhaps two," said Geoffrey. "Principally for carriage of pumping apparatus, fixing, and taking down again." "You have been thoroughly into the matter, then," said Mr Penwynn, who was growing more and more interested. "Thoroughly," said Geoffrey, bluntly, "I don't play with what I take up, sir." The banker shifted his position, got up, walked about the room, sat down again, and began tapping the table with his fingers. "Will you have a cigar, Mr Trethick?" he said, unlocking a drawer. "Thanks, no," said Geoffrey. "I don't smoke over business." There was another pause, during which Geoffrey sat patiently awaiting the banker's orders, while that gentleman was evidently turning the affair well over in his mind. At last he spoke. "Mr Trethick," he said, "what remuneration should you ask to undertake to examine that mine?" "Can't be done without pumping out, sir." "Supposing I place the necessary funds at your disposal?" Geoffrey drew his chair closer. "Do you mean this, Mr Penwynn?" "I never joke over business-matters, Mr Trethick," said the banker.