“Will your condescension towards a stranger, excuse my asking one question,” he said, “before I take my leave?”

I bowed on my side.  Only one question at parting!  The average in my experience was fifty.

“Supposing, sir, it had been possible (and customary) for you to lend me the money,” he said, “in what space of time would it have been possible (and customary) for me to pay it back?”

“According to the usual course pursued in this country,” I answered, “you would have been entitled to pay the money back (if you liked) in one year’s time from the date at which it was first advanced to you.”

The Indian made me a last bow, the lowest of all—­and suddenly and softly walked out of the room.

It was done in a moment, in a noiseless, supple, cat-like way, which a little startled me, I own.  As soon as I was composed enough to think, I arrived at one distinct conclusion in reference to the otherwise incomprehensible visitor who had favoured me with a call.

His face, voice, and manner—­while I was in his company—­were under such perfect control that they set all scrutiny at defiance.  But he had given me one chance of looking under the smooth outer surface of him, for all that.  He had not shown the slightest sign of attempting to fix anything that I had said to him in his mind, until I mentioned the time at which it was customary to permit the earliest repayment, on the part of a debtor, of money that had been advanced as a loan.  When I gave him that piece of information, he looked me straight in the face, while I was speaking, for the first time.  The inference I drew from this was—­that he had a special purpose in asking me his last question, and a special interest in hearing my answer to it.  The more carefully I reflected on what had passed between us, the more shrewdly I suspected the production of the casket, and the application for the loan, of having been mere formalities, designed to pave the way for the parting inquiry addressed to me.

I had satisfied myself of the correctness of this conclusion—­and was trying to get on a step further, and penetrate the Indian’s motives next—­when a letter was brought to me, which proved to be from no less a person that Mr. Septimus Luker himself.  He asked my pardon in terms of sickening servility, and assured me that he could explain matters to my satisfaction, if I would honour him by consenting to a personal interview.

I made another unprofessional sacrifice to mere curiosity.  I honoured him by making an appointment at my office, for the next day.

Mr. Luker was, in every respect, such an inferior creature to the Indian—­he was so vulgar, so ugly, so cringing, and so prosy—­that he is quite unworthy of being reported, at any length, in these pages.  The substance of what he had to tell me may be fairly stated as follows: