“No, sir.  He don’t look it.”

“Then he’s remarkable.  What does he say he wants?”

“He won’t tell, sir; only says it’s very important.”

“And won’t go.  Does he say he won’t go?”

“Says he’ll stand there till he sees you, sir, if it’s all day.”

“And yet isn’t crazy.  Show him up.”

The sundowner was shown in.  The broker said to himself, “No, he’s not crazy; that is easy to see; so he must be the other thing.”

Then aloud, “Well, my good fellow, be quick about it; don’t waste any words; what is it you want?”

“I want to borrow a hundred thousand pounds.”

“Scott! (It’s a mistake; he is crazy . . . .  No—­he can’t be—­not with that eye.) Why, you take my breath away.  Come, who are you?”

“Nobody that you know.”

“What is your name?”

“Cecil Rhodes.”

“No, I don’t remember hearing the name before.  Now then—­just for curiosity’s sake—­what has sent you to me on this extraordinary errand?”

“The intention to make a hundred thousand pounds for you and as much for myself within the next sixty days.”

“Well, well, well.  It is the most extraordinary idea that—­sit down—­you interest me.  And somehow you—­well, you fascinate me; I think that that is about the word.  And it isn’t your proposition—­no, that doesn’t fascinate me; it’s something else, I don’t quite know what; something that’s born in you and oozes out of you, I suppose.  Now then just for curiosity’s sake again, nothing more:  as I understand it, it is your desire to bor——­”

“I said intention.”

“Pardon, so you did.  I thought it was an unheedful use of the word—­an unheedful valuing of its strength, you know.”

“I knew its strength.”

“Well, I must say—­but look here, let me walk the floor a little, my mind is getting into a sort of whirl, though you don’t seem disturbed any.  (Plainly this young fellow isn’t crazy; but as to his being remarkable —­well, really he amounts to that, and something over.) Now then, I believe I am beyond the reach of further astonishment.  Strike, and spare not.  What is your scheme?”

“To buy the wool crop—­deliverable in sixty days.”

“What, the whole of it?”

“The whole of it.”

“No, I was not quite out of the reach of surprises, after all.  Why, how you talk!  Do you know what our crop is going to foot up?”

“Two and a half million sterling—­maybe a little more.”

“Well, you’ve got your statistics right, any way.  Now, then, do you know what the margins would foot up, to buy it at sixty days?”

“The hundred thousand pounds I came here to get.”

“Right, once more.  Well, dear me, just to see what would happen, I wish you had the money.  And if you had it, what would you do with it?”

“I shall make two hundred thousand pounds out of it in sixty days.”