“Very,” I replied.
“And what is all this?” He was looking at my boxes, in the arms of the boy at my elbow. “Purchases? Here?”
“That is my phonograph,” I explained, quite unnecessarily.
“Your what?” He said this much as Crocker had said it.
“My phonograph,” I repeated.
He stood looking at me, with knit brows. Then, “Ah, ha!” he said, musing. “So that was it! I could n't explain that music—hours of it—and the repetitions. I begin to see. You are the authority on Oriental music.”
I bowed coldly.
Sir Robert began smiling—an old man's smile. I started down the stairs, but he kept at my side.
We went on to the outer door together without a word, and waited while the boy called rickshaws for us. I looked at Sir Robert. He was still smiling.
“Let me congratulate you,” he said then, rather dryly. And his left eyelid drooped in what was grotesquely like a wink. “You have the distinction, I believe, of being quite the most practical man in the world. You will go far.”