"'Doctor Carey,' said he, sitting down in the hammock which I had vacated, and toying with the tin box—a proceeding that was so extraordinarily cool that it made me shiver—'I have been looking for you for just sixty-three mortal years.'
"'Excuse me,' I returned, as nonchalantly as I could, considering the fact that I was beginning to be annoyed—'excuse me, but that statement seems to indicate that I was born famous, which I'm inclined to doubt. Inasmuch as I am not yet fifty years old, I cannot understand how it has come to pass that you have been looking for me for sixty-three years.'
"'Nevertheless, my statement was correct,' said he. 'I have been looking for you for sixty-three years, but not for you as you.'
"This made me laugh, although it added slightly to my nervousness, which was now beginning to return. To have a man with a tin box in his hand tell me he had been looking for me for thirteen years longer than I had lived, and then to have him add that it was not, however, me as myself that he wanted, was amusing in a sense, and yet I could not help feeling that it would be a relief to know that the tin box did hold a drinking-cup, and not dynamite.
"'You seem to speak English,' I said, in answer to this remark, 'and I have always thought I understood that language pretty well, but you'll excuse me if I say that I don't see your point.'
"'Why is it that great men are so frequently obtuse?' he said, languidly, giving the ground such a push with his toe that it set the hammock swinging furiously. 'When I say that I have searched for you all these years, but not for you as you, I mean not for you as Dr. Carey, not for you as an individual, but for you as the possessor of a very rare eye.'
"'Go on,' I said, feebly, and rubbed my forehead, thinking perhaps my brains had got into a tangle, and were responsible for this extraordinary affair. 'What is the peculiar quality which makes my eye so rare?'
"'There is only one pair of eyes like them in the world, that I know of,' said the stranger, 'and I have visited all lands in search of them and experimented with all kinds of eyes.'
"'And I am the proud possessor of that pair?' I queried, becoming slightly more interested.
"'Not you,' said he. 'You and I together possess that pair, however.'