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160 "By the hundred!" he murmured, in an awe-struck voice.

"It's a find, of course—treasure trove," continued Lester keenly. "Ever heard of the Beaworth find, my son? Ten thousand William the Conq. pennies kicked up in a cart-wheel rut. Or the Hexham case? Eight thousand Saxon stycas fished out of an old tin bucket. This will be known to history as the great Hockington find, and Lester and Scott will corner the lot. Hundreds! Why shouldn't we scoop thousands, tens of thousands?"

"I'll tell you why," replied his partner, reverting from momentary surprise to his habitual business pessimism. "Because this fellow Clay will promptly get drunk on the strength of his luck and open his mouth in the village ale-house. By now it will be all over the place, and the owner of the land, and the tenant, and the lord of the manor, and the Crown agent will all be there at this moment, screwing the last denier out of him."

"No, no, no," exclaimed Lester, with a deprecating gesture. "It won't be like that at all, my dear fellow. You're a good business man in your own line, I don't deny it; but you've got no romance, Scott; no imagination. This honest yokel Clay is certain to be a shrewd, sober, thrifty son of toil of the kind that has made this England of ours what it is. A little boorish and slow-witted, perhaps, but none the worse for that. Busied with the prosaic duty of mangling wurzels, or whatever his occupation may be, his implement one day happens to go a few inches deeper than usual, and then, as the poet says, 'The ploughshare turns them out.' Your town artisan would grovel on his hands and knees at once, and run about half demented, and give the show away; but our stolid, cautious friend Clay does nothing of the kind. I see and know the man from head to foot. He"

"What are you going to offer him?" interrupted Scott