“Copper _ore_, my dear fellow,” responded Grubemout. “Yes, _lots_ of it. But Uptosnuff wasn’t brought up in a Cornish mine for nothing. The furnaces at Baltimore and Boston want it for half-price, but as they are nearly _out_, we intend to make them _smoke_, ha! ha! But we must go to the expense of an “_adate_” in the meanwhile.”
“Why, what’s the use of _that_—what good will that do?” asks Jones. “What _is_ an _adate_, anyway?”
Poor Jones had a good deal yet to learn about copper-mining, and felt naturally alarmed at these ominous terms. The “cross-cut” was the beginning of puzzlers. He had yet to see—I may as well say he ultimately did see, “the drift,” to help along “the pumps,” as well as the adate with installments, and to become familiar with a variety of mining lore, which assists knowledge in its acquisition, by obligingly allowing us to pay for it. But I believe he never _did_ understand “what they wanted with so many work-shops—_he_ thought they were _miners_!”
“An _adate_, Jones, is only a drain to relieve the mine when it is overcharged with water.”
But this calling in of installments seems to be a sort of patent condenser in the stock market, and shows with how much force a given quantity of air can be squeezed into a given compass.
Grubemout was as active as a bee at sunrise, and offered his advice gratuitously—but “confidentially”—to any number of anxious _inquirers_—but some of _them_ having a copper-mine of their own, by the attractive and _taking_ name of “_Penny_-wise Company,” and others having taken a snap with the “Alligator Mountain Company,” and not liking the bite they received, shook their heads at Fleeceington and looked knowing—the “New Jersey” chaps were quite sprightly, for as their _title_ covered the whole State, they had a fair chance of _realizing_ something when the “Mammoth Shoveling Company” got to work, and lifted the crust off.
Grubemout assured them—“on his honor”—that “the Company did not intend to sell an ounce of its ore to the furnaces. They intended to have ‘_a crushing machine_’ of their own erected at once, and proceed in a style that would soon settle the whole business.”
Jones was “ready for any number of crushers or mashers, grinders or pounders. Head up the creek—dam it! Put up the water-works and the mill-wheel, and give it to the _blasted_ furnaces! Carry the war into Africa!” said he.