w of the office. "Who was
that man who just passed out?" he asked.

The clerk stared in undisguised astonishment. "You don't mean to say you
didn't know WHO he was--all the while you were talking to him?"

"No," returned Peters, impatiently.

"Why, that was Professor Lawrence Grant!--THE Lawrence Grant--don't you
know?--the biggest scientific man and recognized expert on the Pacific
slope. Why, that's the man whose single word is enough to make or break
the biggest mine or claim going! That man!--why, that's the man whose
opinion's worth thousands, for it carries millions with it--and can't be
bought. That's him who knocked the bottom outer El Dorado last year, and
next day sent Eureka up booming! Ye remember that, sure?"

"Of course--but"--stammered Peters.

"And to think you didn't know him!" repeated the hotel clerk
wonderingly. "And here I was reckoning you were getting points from him
all the time! Why, some men would have given a thousand dollars for your
chance of talking to him--yes!--of even being SEEN talking to him.
Why, old Wingate once got a tip on his Prairie Flower lead worth five
thousand dollars while just changing seats with him in the cars and
passing the time of day, sociable like. Why, what DID you talk about?"

Peters, with a miserable conviction that he had thrown away a valuable
opportunity in mere idle gossip, nevertheless endeavored to look
mysterious as he replied, "Oh, business gin'rally." Then in the faint
hope of yet retrieving his blunder he inquired, "How long will he be
here?"

"Don't know. I reckon he and Harcourt's got something on hand. He just
asked if he was likely to be at home or at his office. I told him I
reckoned at the house, for some of the family--I didn't get to see who
they were--drove up in a carriage from the 3.40 train while you were
sitting there."

Meanwhile the subject of this discussion, quite unconscious of the
sensation he had created, or perhaps like most heroes philosophically
careless of it, was sauntering indifferently towards Harcourt's house.
But he had no business with his former host, his only object was to pass
an idle hour before his train left. He was, of course, not unaware that
he himself was largely responsible for Harcourt's success; that it was
HIS hint which had induced the petty trader of Sidon to venture his all
in Tasajara; HIS knowledge of the topography and geology of the
plain that had stimulated Harcourt's agricultural speculations