A small error is as easily found as a large one.
This one was large. I suppose there is no harm in my saying that the
books, taking them together, showed a profit of forty thousand pounds,
when they should have shown a loss of nearly half that amount. I hope
nobody overhears me.'
'No; we are quite alone, and you may be sure I will not breathe a word
of what you have been telling me.'
'Don't breathe it to Kenyon, at least. He would think me insane if he
knew what I have said.'
'Is Mr. Kenyon an accountant, too?'
'Oh no. He is a mineralogist. He can go into a mine, and tell with
reasonable certainty whether it will pay the working or not. Of course,
as he says himself, any man can see six feet into the earth as well as he
can. But it is not every man that can gauge the value of a working mine
so well as John Kenyon.'
'Then, while you were delving among the figures, your companion was
delving among the minerals?'
'Precisely.'
'And did he make any such startling discovery as you did?'
'No; rather the other way. He finds the mines very good properties, and
he thinks that if they were managed intelligently they would be good
paying investments--that is, at a proper price, you know--not at what the
owners ask for them at present. But you can have no possible interest in
these dry details.'
'Indeed, you are mistaken. I think what you have told me intensely
interesting.'
For once in her life Miss Jennie Brewster told the exact truth.
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