s 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 fa