"Rich, good-looking, sound, beloved, eloquent, young. Look at me with the eyes of your mind, and the eyes of your body. Poor, ill-favoured, marred and maimed, loathed, ungifted in speech, middle-aged. Do not stop me. I have no chance if I allow you, a gentleman of your eloquence, to speak against me. Think of it all, and then work out a little calculation for me, and tell me the result. Will you do so candidly, fairly, honestly?"
"Yes, indeed, I will."
"Very well. You who are gifted as I have said, come to me who am afflicted as I have said, and ask me to do you a favour, ask me to sell you a favour. Suppose the favour you ask me to do you cost me ten, at how much do you estimate its value to you?"
"A hundred. Anything you like."
"I am not thinking of money."
"Nor am I. Anything ten-fold returned to you I will freely give."
"Wait a moment. Let me think a while."
Hanbury ceased to walk up and down, and stood in the window leaning against the old-fashioned folding shutters painted the old-fashioned dirty drab.
Leigh sat with his chin sunken deeply on his chest, and his eyes fixed on the floor. Then he spoke in a low tone, a tone half of reverie:
"Nature deals in wonders, and I am one of them. And I in turn deal in wonders, and there are many of them. If I chose I could show you the most wonderful clock in all the world, and I could show you the most wonderful gold in all the world, more wonderful a thousand times than mystery gold. But I will not show you these things now. I will show you a more wonderful thing still. Will you come with me a little way?"