"Perfectly. What are the details?"

"There are fifty ten-pound shares. Dividend accordingly twenty
pounds."

"By Jingo! How is it to be got at?"

"Do you feel disposed to sell the shares?" asked the old man,
looking up sideways, and still smiling.

"No; on the whole I think not."

"Ho, ho, Osmond, where have you learnt prudence, eh?--Why don't
you sit down?--If you didn't come about the mines, why did you
come, eh?"

"Not to mince matters," said Waymark, taking a chair, and speaking
in an off-hand way which cost him much effort, "I came to ask you to
help me to some way of getting a living."

"Hollo!" exclaimed the old man, chuckling. "Why, I should have
thought you'd made your fortune by this time. Poetry doesn't pay, it
seems?"

"It doesn't. One has to buy experience. It's no good saying that I
ought to have been guided by you five years ago. Of course I wish I
had been, but it wasn't possible. The question is, do you care to
help me now?"