Saki

“ Lulu’s intercourse with him had been restricted of recent years to the negative processes of being out of town when he called on her, and short of money when he wrote to her. Now, however, she bethought herself of his eminent suitability for the direction of a treasure-seeking experiment; if anyone could extract gold from an unpromising situation it would certainly be Vasco – of course, under the necessary safeguards in the way of supervision. Where money was in question Vasco’s conscience was liable to fits of obstinate silence. ”

“ The Duchess of Dulverton was rich, as the world counted wealth; she nursed the hope, of being one day rich at her own computation. Companies had been formed and efforts had been made again and again during the course of three centuries to probe for the alleged treasures of the interesting galleon; with the aid of this invention she considered that she might go to work on the wreck privately and independently. After all, one of her ancestors on her mother’s side was descended from Medina Sidonia, so she was of opinion that she had as much right to the treasure as anyone. ”

“ Lulu seldom went there herself, but she lent the house lavishly to friends and relations. She put it now at Vasco’s disposal.
“It will be the very place to practise and experiment with the salvage apparatus,” she said; “the bay is quite deep in places, and you will be able to test everything thoroughly before starting on the treasure hunt.”
In less than three weeks Vasco turned up in town to report progress.
“The apparatus works beautifully,” he informed his aunt; “the deeper one got the clearer everything grew. ”