Читать книгу The Last Chance: A Tale of the Golden West онлайн

69 страница из 92

Having satisfied his appetite, a fairly keen one, he betook himself to his bedroom, and wrote at length to his wife, detailing all progress since his last letter, and finishing up with this exceptional statement: ‘This journey has, of course, not been without a certain share of inconvenience, ssss1 and what some people might call hardship. But you know that such wayfaring is in the nature of holiday-making for me. It was, of course, a hazardous adventure, inasmuch as all our small reserve of capital was embarked. A miscalculation would have been wreck, and almost total loss: would have taken years of painful saving and rigid self-denial to have made up the deficit. But now success, phenomenal, assured, has more than justified the risk, the apparent imprudence, everything. Our fortune is made! as the phrase goes; think of that! When the company is floated, the shares allotted, the machinery on the road to Perth, a hundred thousand pounds will be the lowest valuation at which our half share in the “Last Chance” can be calculated. A hundred thousand pounds! Think of that! Of what it means for you, for me, for the children. For everybody concerned. And a good many people will be concerned beneficially in the venture as soon as the money is paid to my account in the Bank of New Holland.