Here the stranger, who was slowly rising from his chair with the polite suggestion of reluctantly tearing himself from the speaker's spell, said: “And Harcourt spends most of his time in San Francisco, I suppose?”
“Yes! but to-day he's here to attend a directors' meeting and the opening of the Free Library and Tasajara Hall. I saw the windows open, and the blinds up in his house across the plaza as I passed just now.”
The stranger had by this time quite effected his courteous withdrawal. “Good-afternoon, Mr. Peters,” he said, smilingly lifting his hat, and turned away.
Peters, who was obliged to take his legs off the chair, and half rise to the stranger's politeness, here reflected that he did not know his interlocutor's name and business, and that he had really got nothing in return for his information. This must be remedied. As the stranger passed through the hall into the street, followed by the unwonted civilities of the spruce hotel clerk and the obsequious attentions of the negro porter, Peters stepped to the window of the office. “Who was that man who just passed out?” he asked.
The clerk stared in undisguised astonishment. “You don't mean to say you didn't know WHO he was—all the while you were talking to him?”
“No,” returned Peters, impatiently.
“Why, that was Professor Lawrence Grant!—THE Lawrence Grant—don't you know?—the biggest scientific man and recognized expert on the Pacific slope. Why, that's the man whose single word is enough to make or break the biggest mine or claim going! That man!—why, that's the man whose opinion's worth thousands, for it carries millions with it—and can't be bought. That's him who knocked the bottom outer El Dorado last year, and next day sent Eureka up booming! Ye remember that, sure?”
“Of course—but”—stammered Peters.
“And to think you didn't know him!” repeated the hotel clerk wonderingly. “And here I was reckoning you were getting points from him all the time! Why, some men would have given a thousand dollars for your chance of talking to him—yes!—of even being SEEN talking to him. Why, old Wingate once got a tip on his Prairie Flower lead worth five thousand dollars while just changing seats with him in the cars and passing the time of day, sociable like. Why, what DID you talk about?”
Peters, with a miserable conviction that he had thrown away a valuable opportunity in mere idle gossip, nevertheless endeavored to look mysterious as he replied, “Oh, business gin'rally.” Then in the faint hope of yet retrieving his blunder he inquired, “How long will he be here?”