mmend the
Amazon, a huge river of course, but unless you are interested in rubber
or entomology. The insect life I believe----"

"I'm interested in everything," I said, "even insects which bite."

"Well, Para, perhaps, then south again. The South American ports are
worth seeing."

A clerk entered while he was speaking. Ascher handed him the list he had
written.

"Look out the names of our agents in these places," he said, "and have
letters of introduction made out to them for Sir James Digby."

The clerk left the room and I thanked Ascher warmly. It seemed to me
that he was taking a great deal of trouble for which he could expect no
kind of reward. He waved my gratitude aside.

"I think," he said, "that our agents will be able to make your trip
interesting for you. They can tell you what you want to know about the
trade and the natural wealth of the places you visit. They will put you
in the way of finding out the trend of political feeling. It is their
business to know these things, and in visiting new countries--new in
the sense that they have only lately felt the influences of our
civilisation--it is just these things that you will want to know. If you
were going to Italy, or Egypt, or Greece----"

Ascher sighed. I felt that he would have preferred Italy to Brazil if he
had been travelling for pleasure.

"Ah, there," I said, "an artist or a scholar would be a better friend to
have than a banker."

"Even there," said Ascher, "the present and the future matter more than
the past, perhaps. But are you tied at all by time? The tour which I
have indicated will take some months."

"I am an idle man," I said. "I shall go on as long as your introductions
last, gathering knowledge which will not be the slightest use to me or
any one else."

"I had better provide you with a circular letter of credit," said
Ascher. "It is never wise to carry considerable sums about in your
pocket."

We had got to money, to business in the strictest sense of the word.
My opportunity had plainly come for attacking the subject of the cash
register. Yet I hesitated. A banker ought to be the easiest man in the
world to talk business to. There is no awkwardness about the subject
of toothache in a dentist's parlour. He expects to be talked to about
teeth. It ought to have been an equally simple thing to speak to Ascher
about the future of a company in which we were both interested. Yet I
hesitated. There was something in his manner, a