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"Oh, pray tell me all about it; I am so interested!" urged Aunt
Charlotte, eagerly. "You know what confidence I have in your judgment.
Has it anything to do with raw material? It isn't a plantation
anywhere, is it?"

"It's gold!" said Mr Sheepshanks.

"Gold?" repeated Aunt Charlotte, rather taken aback. "A gold mine, I
suppose you mean?"

"The hugest gold-mine in the world," replied the vicar, enjoying her
evident perplexity. "An inexhaustible gold mine. A gold mine without
limits."

"But where--whereabouts is it?" cried Aunt Charlotte.

"All around you," said the vicar, waving his hands vaguely in the air.
"Not in any country at all, but everywhere else. In the ocean."

"Gold in the ocean!" ejaculated the puzzled lady, dropping her
knitting on her lap, and gazing helplessly at her financial mentor.

"Gold in the ocean--precisely," affirmed that gentleman in an
impressive voice. "It has been discovered that sea-water holds a large
quantity of gold in solution, and that by some most interesting
process of precipitation any amount of it can be procured ready for
coining. I got a prospectus of the scheme this morning from Shark,
Picaroon & Co., Fleece Court, London, and I've brought it for you to
read. A most enterprising firm they seem to be. You'll see that it's
full of very elaborate scientific details--the results of the analyses
that have been made, the cost of production, estimates for machinery,
and I don't know what all. I can't say I follow it very clearly
myself, for the clerical mind, as everybody knows, is not very well
adapted to grasping scientific terminology, but I can understand the
general tenor of it well enough. It seems to me that the enterprise is
promising in a very high degree."

"How very remarkable!" observed Aunt Charlotte, as she gazed at the
tabulated figures and enumeration of chemical properties in bewildered
awe. "And you think it a safe investment?"

"_I_ do," replied Mr Sheepshanks, "but don't act on my opinion--judge
for yourself. What's the amount you have to invest--two thousand
pounds, isn't it? Well, I believe that you'd stand to get an income to
that very amount by investing just that sum in the undertaking. Look
what they say overleaf about the cost of working and the estimated
returns. It all sounds fabulous, I admit, but there are the figures,
my dear lady, in black and white, and figures cannot lie."

"I'll write to my bankers about it this very night," said Aunt
Charlotte, folding up the prospectus and putting it carefully into her
pocket. "It's evidently not a chance to be missed, and I'm most
grateful to you, dear Mr Sheepshanks, for putting it in my way."

"Always delighted to be of service to you--as far as my poor judgment
can avail," the vicar assured her with becoming modesty. "Ah, it's
wonderful when one thinks of the teeming riches that lie around us,
only waiting to be utilised. There _was_ another scheme I thought of
for you--a scheme for raising the sunken galleons in the Spanish main,
and recovering the immense treasures that are now lying, safe and
sound, at the bottom of the sea. Curious that both enterprises should
be connected with salt water, eh? And the prospectus was headed with a
most appropriate text--'The Sea shall give up her Dead.' That rather
appealed to me, do you know. It cast an air of solemnity over the
undertaking, and seemed to sanctify it somehow. However, I think the
other will be the best. Well, Austin, and what are you reading now?"

"Aunt Charlotte's face," laughed Austin, sauntering up. "She looks as
though you had been giving her absolution, Mr Sheepshanks--so beaming
and refreshed. Why, what's it all about?"

"I expect you want more absolution than your aunt," said the vicar,
humorously. "A sad useless fellow you are, I'm afraid. You and I must
have a little serious talk together some day, Austin. I really want
you to do something--for your own sake, you know. Now, how would you
like to take a class in the Sunday-school, for instance? I shall have
a vacancy in a week or two."

"Austin teach in the Sunday-school! He'd be more in his place if he
went there as a scholar than as a teacher," said Aunt Charlotte,
derisively.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Sun 21st Dec 2025, 18:28

Austin and His Friends by Frederic H. Balfour