Explore "The Black Opal" by Katharine Susannah Prichard on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Armitage was busy going over parcels of stone and bargaining with the men for the greater part of the next day. He was beginning to have more of Dawe Armitage's zest for the business; and, every time they met, Ridge men found him shrewder, keener. His manner was genial and easygoing with them; but there was a steel band in him somewhere, they were sure.
The old man had been bluff, and as hard as nails; but they understood him better than his son. John Armitage, they knew, was only perfunctorily interested opal-buying at first; he had gone into it to please the old man, but gradually the thing had taken hold of him. He was not yet, however, anything like as good a judge of opal, and his last buying on the Ridge had displeased his father considerably. John Armitage had bought several parcels of good-looking opal; but one stone, which had cost £50 in the rough, was not worth £5 when it was cut. A grain of sand, Dawe Armitage swore he could have seen a mile away, went through it, and it cracked on the wheel. A couple of parcels had brought double what had been paid for them; but several stones John had given a good price for were not worth half the amount, his father had said.