“Financial dealings—small ones.”
“How long did your acquaintanceship with him last—what period did it extend over?”
“I should say about six months to nine months.”
“No more?”
“Certainly no more.”
“It was quite a slight acquaintanceship, then?”
“Oh, quite!”
“And yet, after losing sight of this merely slight acquaintance for over twenty years, you, on meeting him, take great interest in him?”
“Well, I was willing to do him a good turn, I was interested in what he told me the other evening.”
“I see. Now you will not object to my asking you a personal question or two. You are a public man, and the facts about the lives of public men are more or less public property. You are represented in this work of popular reference as coming to this country in 1902, from Argentina, where you made a considerable fortune. You have told us, however, that you were in London, acquainted with Marbury, about the years, say 1890 to 1892. Did you then leave England soon after knowing Marbury?”