his breakfast with the morning paper. A
servant put his head in and said:

"There's a sundowner at the door wants to see you, sir."

"What do you bring that kind of a message here for? Send him about his
business."

"He won't go, sir. I've tried."

"He won't go? That's--why, that's unusual. He's one of two things,
then: he's a remarkable person, or he's crazy. Is he crazy?"

"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--deliverab