"Oh, sir," she said, "he was not really teasing me: he was only in fun."

The old man smiled and nodded.

"That's right! that's right!" he said.

They had just now reached Mr. Kleesman's steps. Rob sprang up, two steps at a time.

"What!" said the old man, "are you going in here? So am I." And they all went in together.

Mr. Kleesman was very glad to see Nelly.

"I haf miss you for many days," he said. "Vy is it you not come more to see a.s.say?"

"We have been very busy," said Nelly: "and have not stayed in town any longer than we needed to sell our things."

"I know! I know!" said Mr. Kleesman: "you haf been at the Goot Luck mine!"

"Why, who told you about it?" exclaimed Rob.

"Ach!" said Mr. Kleesman, "you tink dat mines be to be hid in dis town? Not von but knows of 'Goot Luck,' dat the little maid-child haf found;" and he looked at Nelly and smiled affectionately. "And not von but iss glad," he added, patting her on the head.

Then he turned to the old man who had come in with the children, and said, politely:--

"Vat can I do for you, sir?"

The man took off his hat and sat down, and pulled out of his pocket a little bag of stones, and threw it on the table.

"Tell me if that's worth any thing," he said.

Mr. Kleesman took a small stone out of the bag, and called:--

"Franz! Franz!"

Franz was Mr. Kleesman's servant. He tended the fires, and pounded up the stones fine in an iron mortar, and did all Mr. Kleesman's errands.

Franz came running; and Mr. Kleesman gave him the stone, and said something to him in German. Franz took the stone, and disappeared in the back room.

"After he haf make it fine," said Mr. Kleesman, "I shall a.s.say it for you." Then, turning to Nelly and Rob, he said:--

"Can you stay? I make three a.s.say now in three cups."

"Yes, indeed, we can!" said Nelly: "thank you! That is what we came for. We thought the furnace must be mended by this time."

While Franz was pounding the stone, the old man told Mr. Kleesman about his mine. Nelly listened with attentive ears to all he said: but Rob was busy studying the pretty little bra.s.s scales in the gla.s.s box. The man said that he and two other men had been at work for some months at this mine. The other two men were sure the ore was good; one of them had tried it with the blow-pipe, he said, and got plenty of silver.

"But I just made up my mind," said the man, "that, before I put any more money in there, I'd come to somebody that knew. I ain't such a sodhead as to think I can tell so well about things as a man that's studied 'em all his life; and I asked all about, and they all said, 'Kleesman's the man: he'd give you an honest a.s.say of his own mind if he could get at it and weigh it.'"

Mr. Kleesman laughed heartily. He was much pleased at this compliment to his honesty.

"Yes, I tell you all true," he said. "If it be bad, or if it be good, I tell true."

"That's what I want," said the man.

Then Franz came in with the fine-powdered stone in a paper. Mr.

Kleesman took some of it and weighed it in the little bra.s.s scales.

Then he took some fine-powdered lead and weighed that. Then he mixed the fine lead and the powdered stone together with a knife.

"I take twelve times as much lead as there iss of the stone," he said.

"What is the lead for?" asked Nelly.

"The lead he will draw out of the stone all that are bad: you will see."

Then he put the powdered stone and the lead he had mixed together into a little clay cup, and covered it over with more of the fine-powdered lead. Then he put in a little borax.

"He helps it to melt," he said.

Then he went through into the back room, carrying this cup and two others which were standing on the table already filled with powder ready to be baked.

Rob and Nelly and the old man followed him. He opened the door of the little oven and looked in: it was glowing red hot. Then he took up each cup in tongs, and set it in the oven. When all three were in, he took some burning coals from the fire above, and put them in the mouth of the oven, in front of the cups.

"Dat iss dat cold air from door do not touch dem," he said. Then he shut the door tight, and said:--

"Now ve go back. Ve vait fifteen minute."

He held his watch in his hand, so as not to make a mistake. When the fifteen minutes were over he opened the oven-door to let a current of cool air blow above the little cups. Nelly stood on a box, as she had before, and looked in through the queer board with holes in it for the eyes. The metal in the little cups was bubbling and as red as fire. Rob tried to look, but the heat hurt his eyes so he could not bear it.

"Ven de cold air strike the cups," said Mr. Kleesman, "then the slag are formed."

"Oh, what is slag?" cried Rob.

"All that are bad go into the slag," said Mr. Kleesman.

Then he put on a pair of thick gloves, and a hat on his head, and went close up to the fiery oven door, and took out the cups, and emptied them into little hollow places in a sheet of zinc. The instant the hot metal touched the cool zinc, it spread out into a fiery red rose.

"Oh, how lovely!" cried Nelly.

"By jingo!" said Rob.

Even while they were speaking, the bright red rose turned dark,--hardened,--and there lay three shining b.u.t.tons, flat and round. Their rims looked like dark gla.s.s; and in their centres was a bright, silvery spot.

Mr. Kleesman took a hammer and pounded off all this dark, shining rim. Then he pounded the little silvery b.u.t.tons which were left into the right shape to fit into some tiny little clay cups he had there.

They were shaped like a flower-pot, but only about an inch high.

"Now these must bake one-half hour again," he said; and put them into the oven. Pretty soon he opened the oven-door to let the cold air in again, as he had done before. That would make all the lead go off, he said: it would melt into the little cups, and leave nothing but the pure silver behind.

"Now vatch! vatch!" he said to Nelly. "In von minute you shall see a flash in de cups, like lightning, just one second: it are de last of de lead driven avay; den all is done."