“What astonishes me,” said Tommy, “is the way he comes up to sample. He went on exactly like a film; it was better than that, it was the exact echo of himself, wasn’t it? Or like a photograph?”
“He’s always done it,” said the manager, with the pompous assumption of knowledge drawn at fourth hand, and accurate enough. “I don’t know whether it is that he likes the mystery of it, or that he has got some mania for keeping everything to himself; but he did exactly the same thing in Paris, two years ago. He blew into Rogers’s, started an account, behaved like a lunatic—but quite gently—asked the most ridiculous questions, made a sudden haul in what nobody was thinking about, the Bordeaux Loan—he had heard something—left the whole pile on current account for three months, and then transferred it by cable. Without a word of writing or anything. They had had the use of the money all that time, and they’ve been living ever since with their mouths open praying he’ll blow in again.”
Tommy nodded, holding his chin in his hand.
“We shall not keep him,” he said; “but it will be useful while it lasts,” and the manager nodded in agreement. Then they both smiled and returned each to his task.
It has been said by a Great Victorian Bore that if you could take samples of the conversation going on in our great cities at any one moment you would think you were listening to parrots repeating themselves. He was right.
Not indeed at that exact moment, but less than three hours later, the clerk of the register of the Splendide, having gone off duty, met Mr. Daniels (as was his custom) in the bar of the “Beaver.” And Mr. Daniels’ first question was:
“Who was that old fellow you sent me to-day?”
The clerk drew a little closer, put his mouth close to Mr. Daniels’ ear, and murmured the name.
For once in his life Mr. Daniels showed real, honest, innocent surprise. His eyes opened widely, and then his expression changed to a mixture of vast amusement and vast admiration combined.
“By God!” he said, “he’s a genius!”