“Oh no,” said Morris; “it is quite true.”
“Dear me,” said the Professor, “what an opportunity! Why, I would give worlds to see it,” he added with a laugh. “It has been one of the regrets of my life that I did not ask the Nawab’s permission to inspect those clasps. To my thinking, the inscriptions must have been of that so-called talismanic kind in which these weak heathen believe. Now, do you think it possible that you could prevail upon your young friend—”
“Oh no, I am sure I couldn’t,” said Morris, trying hard to read the distant church clock.
“But say you convey to him my invitation, and ask him to bring the belt to my rooms one afternoon.”
“Oh, really I—”
“Oh, such a simple thing—educational, and—I beg your pardon, you must go? Of course. I am afraid I have been prolix; but my dear Morris, bear that in mind. A little discussion upon those inscriptions would be beneficial to the boy—I could tell him things he would be proud to know—and it would enable me to send a profitable description to the newspapers.—Yes, good-bye till we meet again.”
They separated, and the Professor walked slowly away, with his attention equally balanced between recollections of the Nawab’s clasps and the last little dinner he had eaten at the country refreshment-house at Morris’s expense, what time he played a pleasant little game of raising one half-crown from where it lay upon its fellow at the bottom of his pocket and letting it fall again with an agreeable chink.