Finally his money was all gone. He walked the streets all day, thinking;he walked them all night, thinking, thinking, and growing hungrier and hungrier. At dawn he found himself well away from the town and drifting aimlessly along the harbor shore. As he was passing by a nodding shark-fisher the man looked up and said----
"Say, young fellow, take my line a spell, and change my luck for me.""How do you know I won't make it worse?"
"Because you can't. It has been at its worst all night.
If you can't change it, no harm's done; if you do change it, it's for the better, of course. Come.""All right, what will you give.?"
"I'll give you the shark, if you catch one."
"And I will eat it, bones and all. Give me the line.""Here you are. I will get away, now, for awhile, so that my luck won't spoil yours; for many and many a time I've noticed that if----there, pull in, pull in, man, you've got a bite! I knew how it would be. Why, Iknew you for a born son of luck the minute I saw you. All right--he's landed."It was an unusually large shark--"a full nineteen-footer," the fisherman said, as he laid the creature open with his knife.
"Now you rob him, young man, while I step to my hamper for a fresh bait.
There's generally something in them worth going for. You've changed my luck, you see. But my goodness, I hope you haven't changed your own.""Oh, it wouldn't matter; don't worry about that. Get your bait. I'll rob him."When the fisherman got back the young man had just finished washing his hands in the bay, and was starting away.
"What, you are not going?"
"Yes. Good-bye."
"But what about your shark?"
"The shark? Why, what use is he to me?"
"What use is he? I like that. Don't you know that we can go and report him to Government, and you'll get a clean solid eighty shillings bounty?
Hard cash, you know. What do you think about it now?""Oh, well, you can collect it."
"And keep it? Is that what you mean?"
"Yes."
"Well, this is odd. You're one of those sort they call eccentrics, Ijudge. The saying is, you mustn't judge a man by his clothes, and I'm believing it now. Why yours are looking just ratty, don't you know; and yet you must be rich.""I am."
The young man walked slowly back to the town, deeply musing as he went.
He halted a moment in front of the best restaurant, then glanced at his clothes and passed on, and got his breakfast at a "stand-up." There was a good deal of it, and it cost five shillings. He tendered a sovereign, got his change, glanced at his silver, muttered to himself, "There isn't enough to buy clothes with," and went his way.
At half-past nine the richest wool-broker in Sydney was sitting in his morning-room at home, settling his breakfast with the morning paper. Aservant 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, Ibelieve I am beyond the reach of further astonishment. Strike, and spare not. What is your scheme?""To buy the wool crop--deliverable in sixty days.""What, the whole of it?"
"The whole of it."
