The professor seemed to cock a psychic ear toward Bean.

“You want—­ah, yes, I see what you want, but that, of course, humanly, would be impossible.  Oh, quite impossible, quite, quite!”

“Why, if you’re sure it’s there?”

“My dear sir, you descend to the material world.  I will talk to you now as one practical man to another.  Simply because it would take more money than you can afford.  The thing is practicable but too expensive.”

“How do you know?”

“It is true, I do not know.  My control warned me when I came here that your circumstances had been suddenly bettered.  I withdraw the words.  I do not know, but—­you will pardon the bluntness—­can you afford it?”

“What’d it cost?  That’s what I want to know.”

“Hum!” said the professor.  He was unable to achieve more for a little time.  He hum’d again.

“There’s the labour and the risk,” he ventured at last.  “Of course my agents at Cairo—­I have secret agents in every city on the globe—­could proceed to the spot from my carefully worded directions.  They could do the work of excavating.  So far, so good!  But they would have to work quietly and would be punished if discovered.  Of course here and there they could bribe.  Naturally, they would have to bribe, and that, as you are doubtless aware, requires money.  Again, entering this port the custom-house officials would have to be bribed, and they’ve gone up in price the last few years.  My control tells me that this mummy is one they’ve been looking hard for.  It’s about the only one they haven’t found.  The loss will be discovered and my men might be traced.  It requires an enormous sum.  Now, for instance, a thousand dollars”—­he regarded Bean closely and was reassured—­“a thousand dollars wouldn’t any more than start the work.  Two thousand”—­his eyes were steadily upon Bean now—­“would further it some.  Three thousand might see it pretty well advanced.  Four thousand, of course, would help still farther and five thousand”—­he had seen the shadow of dismay creep over the face of his sitter—­“five thousand, I think, might put the thing through.”

Bean drew a long breath.  The professor had correctly read the change in his face at “five thousand,” but it had been a sudden fear that his whole ten thousand was not going to suffice for this prodigious operation.

“I can afford that,” said Bean shortly.  He hardly dared trust himself to say more.  His emotion threatened to overcome him.

The professor suffered from the same danger.  He, too, dared trust himself to say no more than the few necessary words.

“There must be a payment down,” he said with forced coldness.

“How much?”

“A thousand wouldn’t be any too much.”

“Enough?”

“Well, perhaps not enough,” the professor nerved himself to admit.

“I’ll give you two, now.  Give you the rest when you get—­when you get It here.”