Part 11 (1/2)

He drew a sheet of paper towards him and began to write.

”You ought to see the work at Panama,” he said. ”It is very interesting and of course of immense importance. Certainly you must see that.

Afterwards----”

He scribbled on his sheet of paper, making lists of place names and adding notes about ways of travelling.

”If you go further south still----” he said. ”I don't recommend 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 grat.i.tude 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 grave formality, which kept me miles away from him. I thanked him for the promise of the letter of credit and then sat silent for a minute.

”By the way,” said Ascher, ”I have just had a visit from a man on business in which you are interested.”

”Was that the man who pa.s.sed me in the anteroom before I was shown in here?”

”Yes. He came to talk to me about Gorman's new cash register. He was not an accredited agent, you will understand. He did not profess to represent anybody. He was not empowered to treat with us in any way, but----”

Ascher smiled faintly.

”I understand,” I said, ”a sort of informal amba.s.sador who could easily be disowned if anything he said turned out to be inconvenient. In politics men of that sort are very useful; but I somehow had the idea that business methods are more straightforward.”

”All negotiations,” said Ascher, ”whether in politics or business are carried on in much the same way. But before I go into his suggestions I had better tell you how the matter stands. Mildmay sent us his report and it was entirely favourable to the new machine. I think the invention is likely to turn out a valuable property. We have made inquiries and find out that the patent rights are duly protected here and in all the chief European countries. In fact----”

”It was really that and not my travels which I came to talk to you about to-day. I may take it that we have got a good thing.”

”We think so,” said Ascher, ”and our opinion is confirmed by the fact that we are not the only people who think so. If I am right about the man who visited me this morning we have very good evidence that our opinion is sound. The men who are in the best position to know about cash registers, who are most interested in their future----”

”The makers of the existing machines?”