Street, and brought back a learned Oriental to translate the Chinese
silk. The Mott Street one, himself a substantial merchant and a Mongol
of high caste, appeared wrapped in rustling brocades and an odor of
opium. When he beheld the yellow silk he bent himself, and smote the
floor three times with his forehead. More than anything told by Mr.
Harley did this profound obeisance of the Mott Street Oriental leave its
impress upon the five. They, themselves, bowed to nothing save gold; the
silken document must record a franchise of gravity and money-moment to
thus set their visitor to beating the carpet with his head! Having done
due honor to the Emperor's signature, the Mott Street one gave Mr.
Harley and his friends the silken document's purport in English. It
granted every right, railway, wharf, and gold, asserted by Storri. Then
Mr. Harley wired that nobleman to join them in New York.

Storri had not been informed of Mr. Harley's New York visit. But he had
counted on it, and the summons in no wise smote him with surprise. Once
with Mr. Harley and the adventurous five, Storri again went over his
project, beginning at the Chinese railway and closing with Credit
Magellan, capital thirty billions. Not one who heard went unconvinced;
not one but was willing to commence in practical fashion the carrying
out of this high financial dream.

It was the romance--for money-making has its romances--and the
adventurous uncertainty of the thing, the pushing into the unknown,
which formed the lure. Have you ever considered that nine of ten among
those who went with De Soto and Balboa and Coronado and Cortez and
Pizarro, if asked by some quiet neighbor, would have refused him the
loan of one hundred dollars unless secured by fivefold the value? And
yet the last man jack would peril life and fortune blindly in a voyage
to worlds unknown, for profits guessed at, against dangers neither to be