y experience
of them--he respected my time.

"I am sorry," I said, "that you should have had the trouble of coming to
me. Mr. Luker is quite mistaken in sending you here. I am trusted, like
other men in my profession, with money to lend. But I never lend it to
strangers, and I never lend it on such a security as you have produced."

Far from attempting, as other people would have done, to induce me to
relax my own rules, the Indian only made me another bow, and wrapped up
his box in its two coverings without a word of protest. He rose--this
admirable assassin rose to go, the moment I had answered him!

"Will your condescension towards a stranger, excuse my asking one
question," he said, "before I take my leave?"

I bowed on my side. Only one question at parting! The average in my
experience was fifty.

"Supposing, sir, it had been possible (and customary) for you to lend me
the money," he said, "in what space of time would it have been possible
(and customary) for me to pay it back?"

"According to the usual course pursued in this country," I answered,
"you would have been entitled to pay the money back (if you liked) in
one year's time from the date at which it was first advanced to you."

The Indian made me a last bow, the lowest of all--and suddenly and
softly walked out of the room.

It was done in a moment, in a noiseless, supple, cat-like way, which a
little startled me, I own. As soon as I was composed enough to think,
I arrived at one distinct conclusion in reference to the otherwise
incomprehensible visitor who had favoured me with a call.

His face, voice, and manner--while I was in his company--were under such
perfect control that they set all scrutiny at defiance. But he had given
me one chance of looking under the smooth outer surface of him, for all
that. He had not shown the slightest sign of attempting to fix anything
that I had said to him in his mind, until I mentioned the time at which
it was customary to permit the earliest repayment, on the part of a
debtor, of money that had been advanced as a loan. When I gave him that
piece of information, he looked me straight in the face, while I was
speaking, for the first time. The inference I drew from this was--that
he had a special purpose in asking me his last question, and a special
interest in hearing my answer to it. The more carefully I reflected on
what had passed between us, the more shrewdly I suspected the production
of the casket, and t