Mr. Cassilis gasped.
"Do you mean, Mr. Beck, do you actually mean that you are drawing a profit, a clear profit, of more than £1,300 a day from your rock-oil shafts?"
"That is it, sir—that is the lowest figure. Say £1,500 a day."
"And how long has this been going on?"
"Close upon ten months."
Mr. Cassilis produced a pencil and made a little calculation.
"Then you are worth at this moment, allowing for Sundays, at least a quarter of a million sterling."
"Wall, I think it is near that figure. We can telegraph to New York, if you like, to find out. I don't quite know within a hundred thousand."
"And a yearly income of £500,000, Mr. Beck!" said Mr. Cassilis, rising solemnly. "Let me—allow me to shake hands with you again. I had no idea, not the slightest idea, in asking you to my house the other day, that I was entertaining a man of so much weight and such enormous power."
He shook hands with a mixture of deference and friendship. Then he looked again, with a watchful glance, at the tall and wiry American with the stern face, the grave eyes, the mobile lips, and the muscular frame, and sat down and began to soliloquise.