I did not want to act like a lunatic before strangers.

But Artemus gently insisted, and I drank the treasonable mixture under protest, and felt all the time that I was doing a thing I might be sorry for.

In a minute or two I began to imagine that my ideas were clouded.
I waited in great anxiety for the conversation to open, with a sort of vague hope that my understanding would prove clear, after all, and my misgivings groundless.
Artemus dropped an unimportant remark or two, and then assumed a look of superhuman earnestness, and made the following astounding speech.

He said: "Now there is one thing I ought to ask you about before I forget it.

You have been here in Silver land--here in Nevada--two or three years, and, of course, your position on the daily press has made it necessary for you to go down in the mines and examine them carefully in detail, and therefore you know all about the silver-mining business.