"Yes, let's see the place where the nugget was found," echoed another.

 

"All right! I'm agreeable," said Obed.

 

Followed by a crowd of miners, Obed Stackpole strode to the claim where he had "struck it rich." In spite of his homely² face and ungainly form there was more than one who would have been willing to stand in his shoes, homeliness³ and all. The day before little notice was taken of him. Now he was a man who had won fame at a bound.

 

They soon stood around the lucky claim.

 

"It isn't much to look at, gentlemen," said Obed, "but looks is deceptive⁴, as my old grandmother used to tell me. 'Handsome is as handsome does,' and this 'ere hole's done the handsome thing for me and my partners, and I venture to say it hasn't got through doin' handsome things. It's made three of us rich, and it's ready to make somebody else rich. Who'll be the lucky man? Do I hear a bid!"

 

"Fifty pounds," said Tom Lewis.

 

"That'll do to start on, but it won't do to take. Fifty pounds I am offered. Who says a hundred?"

 

A German miner offered a hundred, and Tom Lewis raised ten pounds.

 

A Scotch⁵ miner, Aleck Graham, offered a hundred and twenty-five.

 

From that time the bids rose slowly. Obed showed himself an excellent auctioneer—indeed he had had some experience at home—and by his dry and droll⁶ remarks stimulated⁷ the bidding when it became dull, and did not declare the claim sold till it was clear no higher bid could be obtained.

 

"Three hundred pounds, and sold to Frank Scott," he concluded. "Mr. Scott, I congratulate you. I calculate you've made a pretty good investment, and I shouldn't wonder if you'd find another nugget within a week. 'Birds of a feather flock together,' as my writing-book says, and 'it never rains but it pours.'"

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