“Cecil Rhodes.”
“No, I don’t remember hearing the name before. Now then—just for curiosity’s sake—what has sent you to me on this extraordinary errand?”
“The intention to make a hundred thousand pounds for you and as much for myself within the next sixty days.”
“Well, well, well. It is the most extraordinary idea that—sit down—you interest me. And somehow you—well, you fascinate me; I think that that is about the word. And it isn’t your proposition—no, that doesn’t fascinate me; it’s something else, I don’t quite know what; something that’s born in you and oozes out of you, I suppose. Now then just for curiosity’s sake again, nothing more: as I understand it, it is your desire to bor——”
“I said intention.”
“Pardon, so you did. I thought it was an unheedful use of the word—an unheedful valuing of its strength, you know.”
“I knew its strength.”
“Well, I must say—but look here, let me walk the floor a little, my mind is getting into a sort of whirl, though you don’t seem disturbed any. (Plainly this young fellow isn’t crazy; but as to his being remarkable—well, really he amounts to that, and something over.) Now then, I believe I am beyond the reach of further astonishment. Strike, and spare not. What is your scheme?”
“To buy the wool crop—deliverable in sixty days.”
“What, the whole of it?”