"Of course they're real. What of it? They could buy that amount of gold ten times over--twenty times over--with what they've taken in this morning. And they expect another boat-load of suckers this afternoon. And this is only the beginning,--Snider's been rustling around amongst a lot of women and old people over in Lanesport, and they're about ready to make over their bank- accounts to him. They LIKE him, you know,--a lot of folks DO like just that kind of slippery snake. It's funny,--you'd think anyone with ordinary common-sense would grab hold of his watch and his small change, and hang on to it--hard, as soon as Br'er Snider hove in sight. But no,--they try to crowd their money onto him... Real gold! Of course it was real,--that's what fetched 'em. They don't stop to think that there's no connection proved between the gold and the sea-water. What got 'em interested at first was old man Chick's reputation for honesty. He is honest,--no doubt about that, honest as the day is long. Only he's been fooled like the rest of 'em,--he was over here two weeks ago, and they did their trick for him then, with the tin box and the battery, and the blue and white powders, and all the rest of it. They gave him some of the gold they made then, and he carried it up to the city and had it analyzed. But they could make gold in J. Harvey Bowditch's tall hat just as well as in that old tin box." I had been thinking all the time he was speaking. "Look here," I said, "I saw them down under the wharf, yesterday afternoon." "You did? Where?" I told him all about it,--how I had seen them both on the platform above the water, what they were doing, and how guilty they had acted. "There's a trap-door, then? Do you suppose you can point it out to me? Let's stroll down there now. Pretend to be talking about something else, and just cough when we are on the trap." It was not very easy to do. There were about thirty people standing on that little wharf, and they had left baskets, coats and shawls here and there, so that the standing room was pretty well covered. Besides, when I came to look for the trap-door I found I could hardly pick it out, it had been so skilfully made. At last I thought we were on it, so I coughed, and the black-eyed man halted. He had been telling me some story all the time, and now he turned toward me and held out both his hands as if he were measuring the size of a fish or something. Then he pointed out into the bay, threw back his head and laughed. Finally he glanced down at the trap-door, looked up again quickly, and went on with his story. Then he moved off the door, looked down at it again, pinched my arm, and whispered: "Say, I think I'll come back here this afternoon, and have another look at this."