"I have a flower, an orchid. It is at your disposal, at a price."
"At a price, of course. What are you asking for it?"
Paul Lopez made no reply. He proceeded to remove the paper from the long cone, and disclosed a lank, withered-looking stem with faded buds apparently hanging thereto by attenuated threads. It might have been nothing better than a dead clematis thrown by a gardener on the dust-heap. The root, or what passed for it, was simply attached to a slap of virgin cork by a couple of rusty nails. Frobisher watched Lopez with half-closed eyes.
"Of course, I am going to be disappointed," he said. "How often have I gone hunting the eagle and found it to be a tit? The rare sensation of a new blossom has been denied me for years. Is it possible that my pets are going to have a new and lovely sister?"
He caressed the purple bloom over his head tenderly. Lopez drew from his pocket a great tangle of Manilla rope, yards of it, which he proceeded to loop along one side of the orchid-house. Upon this he twisted his faded stem, drawing it out until, with the dusty laterals, there were some forty feet of it.
"Where is your steam-pipe?" he asked.
Frobisher indicated the steam-cock languidly. Ever and again the nozzle worked automatically, half filling the orchid-house with the grateful steam which was as life to the gorgeous flowers. Lopez turned the cock full on; there was a hiss, a white cloud that fairly enveloped his recent work.
"Now you shall see what you shall see," he said in his calm, cool voice. "Oh, my friend, you will be with your arms about my neck presently!"
Already the masses of flowers were glistening with moisture. It filled up the strands of the loose Manilla rope, and drew it up tight as a fiddle-string. Through the dim cloud Frobisher could see the dry stalks literally bursting into life.
"Aaron's rod," murmured Frobisher. "Do you know that for Aaron's rod, properly verified, and in good working order, I would give quite a lot of money?"