Cover image for

Pharaoh's Broker

Subtitle Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner
Categories Science Fiction, Fiction
Language English
Published 1899
Word count 72,162
Excerpt

azy but characteristic attitude. It tended to make his coat pouch and his shoulders droop. I remembered having seen it somewhere before.

"Mr. Werner, I have a matter of the deepest and vastest importance to unfold to you," he began, rather mysteriously, "for which I desire five hours of your unemployed time----"

"Five hours!" I interrupted. "You do not know me! That much is hard to find without running into the middle of the night, or into the middle of the day--which is worse for a busy man. I have just five minutes to spare this afternoon, which will be quite time enough to tell me who you are and why you have sought me."

"You do not know me because you do not expect to see me on this hemisphere," he continued. "Nor did I expect to find you a potent force in the commercial world, only three years after a literary and linguistic preparation for a scholarly career. Why, the mädchens of Heidelberg have hardly had time to forget your tall, athletic figure, or ceased wondering