The boys were as hungry as usual, but I could eat nothing. Neither could I talk. I was full of dreams and far away. Their conversation interrupted the flow of my fancy somewhat, and annoyed me a little, too. I despised the sordid and commonplace things they talked about. But as they proceeded, it began to amuse me. It grew to be rare fun to hear them planning their poor little economies and sighing over possible privations and distresses when a gold mine, all our own, lay within sight of the cabin and I could point it out at any moment. Smothered hilarity began to oppress me, presently. It was hard to resist the impulse to burst out with exultation and reveal everything; but I did resist. I said within myself that I would filter the great news through my lips calmly and be serene as a summer morning while I watched its effect in their faces. I said:
"Where have you all been?"
"Prospecting."
"What did you find?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? What do you think of the country?"
"Can't tell, yet," said Mr. Ballou, who was an old gold miner, and had likewise had considerable experience among the silver mines.
"Well, haven't you formed any sort of opinion?"
"Yes, a sort of a one. It's fair enough here, may be, but overrated. Seven thousand dollar ledges are scarce, though.
"That Sheba may be rich enough, but we don't own it; and besides, the rock is so full of base metals that all the science in the world can't work it. We'll not starve, here, but we'll not get rich, I'm afraid."
"So you think the prospect is pretty poor?"
"No name for it!"
"Well, we'd better go back, hadn't we?"
"Oh, not yet--of course not. We'll try it a riffle, first."
"Suppose, now--this is merely a supposition, you know--suppose you could find a ledge that would yield, say, a hundred and fifty dollars a ton-- would that satisfy you?"
"Try us once!" from the whole party.
"Or suppose--merely a supposition, of course--suppose you were to find a ledge that would yield two thousand dollars a ton--would that satisfy you?"
"Here--what do you mean? What are you coming at? Is there some mystery behind all this?"
"Never mind. I am not saying anything. You know perfectly well there are no rich mines here--of course you do. Because you have been around and examined for yourselves. Anybody would know that, that had been around. But just for the sake of argument, suppose--in a kind of general way--suppose some person were to tell you that two-thousand-dollar ledges were simply contemptible--contemptible, understand--and that right yonder in sight of this very cabin there were piles of pure gold and pure silver--oceans of it--enough to make you all rich in twenty-four hours! Come!"
"I should say he was as crazy as a loon!" said old Ballou, but wild with excitement, nevertheless.
"Gentlemen," said I, "I don't say anything--I haven't been around, you know, and of course don't know anything--but all I ask of you is to cast your eye on that, for instance, and tell me what you think of it!" and I tossed my treasure before them.
There was an eager scramble for it, and a closing of heads together over it under the candle-light. Then old Ballou said:
"Think of it? I think it is nothing but a lot of granite rubbish and nasty glittering mica that isn't worth ten cents an acre!"
So vanished my dream. So melted my wealth away. So toppled my airy castle to the earth and left me stricken and forlorn.
Moralizing, I observed, then, that "all that glitters is not gold."
Mr. Ballou said I could go further than that, and lay it up among my treasures of knowledge, that nothing that glitters is gold. So I learned then, once for all, that gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and that only low-born metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter. However, like the rest of the world, I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica. Commonplace human nature cannot rise above that.