“I was coming to call on you,” said the latter to Lindley, “but I saw you from the street and thought you mightn’t mind my being as informal as I used to be, so many years ago.”

“Of course,” said Richard.

“I have a sinister purpose in coming,” Mr. Corliss laughingly went on.  “I want to bore you a little first, and then make your fortune.  No doubt that’s an old story to you, but I happen to be one of the adventurers whose argosies are laden with real cargoes.  Nobody knows who has or hasn’t money to invest nowadays, and of course I’ve no means of knowing whether you have or not—­you see what a direct chap I am—­but if you have, or can lay hold of some, I can show you how to make it bring you an immense deal more.”

“Naturally,” said Richard pleasantly, “I shall be glad if you can do that.”

“Then I’ll come to the point.  It is exceedingly simple; that’s certainly one attractive thing about it.”  Corliss took some papers and unmounted photographs from his pocket, and began to spread them open on the bench between himself and Richard.  “No doubt you know Southern Italy as well as I do.”

“Oh, I don’t `know’ it.  I’ve been to Naples; down to Paestum; drove from Salerno to Sorrentoby Amalfi; but that was years ago.”

“Here’s a large scale map that will refresh your memory.”  He unfolded it and laid it across their knees; it was frayed with wear along the folds, and had been heavily marked and dotted with red and blue pencillings.  “My millions are in this large irregular section,” he continued.  “It’s the anklebone and instep of Italy’s boot; this sizable province called Basilicata, east of Salerno, north of Calabria.  And I’ll not hang fire on the point, Lindley.  What I’ve got there is oil.”

“Olives?” asked Richard, puzzled.

“Hardly!” Corliss laughed.  “Though of course one doesn’t connect petroleum with the thought of Italy, and of all Italy, Southern Italy.  But in spite of the years I’ve lived there, I’ve discovered myself to be so essentially American and commercial that I want to drench the surface of that antique soil with the brown, bad-smelling crude oil that lies so deep beneath it.  Basilicata is the coming great oil-field of the world—­and that’s my secret.  I dare to tell it here, as I shouldn’t dare in Naples.”

“Shouldn’t `dare’?” Richard repeated, with growing interest, and no doubt having some vague expectation of a tale of the Camorra.  To him Naples had always seemed of all cities the most elusive and incomprehensible, a laughing, thieving, begging, mandolin-playing, music-and-murder haunted metropolis, about which anything was plausible; and this impression was not unique, as no inconsiderable proportion of Mr. Lindley’s fellow-countrymen share it, a fact thoroughly comprehended by the returned native.

“It isn’t a case of not daring on account of any bodily danger,” explained Corliss.

“No,” Richard smiled reminiscently.  “I don’t believe that would have much weight with you if it were.  You certainly showed no symptoms of that sort in your extreme youth.  I remember you had the name of being about the most daring and foolhardy boy in town.”