And yet it had
been a terrible chain of evidence, and he had not seen how it was to be
broken.
Then he branched off from his own affair, and went into an account of
all that he had just heard of the experience of Derby himself with
Calluci; and the adventure, in spite of Derby's protests, certainly lost
nothing in the recital. The princess and Nina had not heard of this, and
Nina sat and gazed at the hero in mute rapture. In fact, the only one
whose feelings were at all uncertain was Derby. Not but that it was
pleasant to hear such praise of himself but it is very hard to be a hero
unless one has no sense of humor at all. When the prince had used up
half the adjectives of praise and admiration in the Italian language,
and was about to begin on the other half, Derby succeeded in
interrupting.
"By the way, princess," he said, "I have something I meant to show you
this morning, but the other matter put it out of my mind." He drew a
paper out of his pocket and handed it to her. She opened it, the prince
looking over her shoulder. It was a sheet of foolscap covered with fine
writing and many figures in groups and in columns.
"But what does it mean?" she asked.
"It is our first balance sheet at the mines. These are the tons of ore
taken out," he answered, pointing to various totals, "this is the
present market price paid for the first shipment, and this is the amount
we are turning out now per day.
Pages:
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331