know that avarice has no dreams, but only insomnia. And, for the other
party, my gardener would never consent to dig up the garden.

Nevertheless, I was overwhelmed with intellectual emotions when I saw that
answer to my question; the question of why the garden did not belong to
the gardener. No better epigram could be put in reply than simply putting
the Spade Guinea beside the Spade. This was the only underground seed
that I could understand. Only by having a little more of that dull,
battered yellow substance could I manage to be idle while he was active.
I am not altogether idle myself; but the fact remains that the power is in
the thin slip of metal we call the Spade Guinea, not in the strong square
and curve of metal which we call the Spade. And then I suddenly
remembered that as I had found gold on my ground by accident, so richer
men in the north and west counties had found coal in their ground, also by
accident.

I told the gardener that as he had found the thing he ought to keep it,
but that if he cared to sell it to me it could be valued properly, and
then sold. He said at first, with characteristic independence, that he
would like to keep it. He said it would make a brooch for his wife. But
a little later he brought it back to me without explanation. I could not
get a ray of light on the reason of his refusal; but he looked lowering
and unhappy. Had he some mystical instinct that it is just such
accidental and irrational wealth that is the doom of all peasantries?
Perhaps he dimly felt that the boy's pirate tales are true; and that
buried treasure is a thing for robbers and not for producers. Perhaps he
thought there was a curse on such capital: on the coal of the coal-owners,
on the gold of the gold-seekers. Perhaps there is.