"Well," Mr. Clapp went on, "a placer mine is one where the gold lies embedded in the soil and has to be washed out, and if there doesn't happen to be running water near by it costs an awful lot to bring it in."
"Yes," said the polite Polly, with a vision of a fire-brigade running about with buckets in their hands, as they used to do in Fieldham.
"What they call hydraulic mining," Dan put in.
"Yes, that's it. Big ditches to be dug, and all that sort of thing. Well, this 'Big Bonus Mine' was discovered twenty years ago. A company was started and the stock was put on the market at a dollar a share. The management made a mess of it, as a management usually does, and it fizzled out. It was believed that the thing was chock-full of gold, but they couldn't get it out."
Polly was beginning to be interested; she usually did find things interesting when she gave her mind to them.
"They gave it up for a bad job, and tried to forget all the money they had put into it."
"Out of the 'Big Bonus Placer Gold Mine!' We scoop it right out to-day."
"I wish you'd go ahead!" said Dan, for the guest had paused, and was examining the _Cicero_.
"Well, hydraulic mining improves, like every thing else, and three years ago a new company was formed. Luckily the old company had not gone into debt; perhaps they could not borrow money on their elephant. However that may be, they agreed to put half their stock back into the treasury, and it was sold at fifty cents a share, which gave us money to work with."
"And it was a howling success!" cried Dan. "I remember; I've heard all about it."
"Yes, we've paid out two dollars a share in dividends in the last six months, and the stock is held at fifteen or sixteen dollars a share to-day. The beauty of it is," Mr. Horace Clapp added, glancing quietly from Dan to Polly, "I am convinced that you are both stockholders."
"Yes! For Jones tells me that your father was a doctor; that his name was Daniel Reddiman Fitch, and that he once lived in Bington, Ohio."
"Yes," said Polly; "that was when he was first married; before old Doctor Royce died, and left an opening in Fieldham, so that Father came back home again."
"The name of such a stockholder stands on our books, but we haven't heretofore been able to trace him."