"False, obviously false," he remarked with his lips; and I'm bound
to confess I never saw any man speak so well by movement alone;
you could follow every word though not a sound escaped him.

During the rest of that evening Dr. Hector Macpherson stuck to me
as close as a mustard-plaster. And he was almost as irritating. I
got heartily sick of the Upper Amazons. I have positively waded in
my time through ruby mines (in prospectuses, I mean) till the mere
sight of a ruby absolutely sickens me. When Charles, in an unwonted
fit of generosity, once gave his sister Isabel (whom I had the
honour to marry) a ruby necklet (inferior stones), I made Isabel
change it for sapphires and amethysts, on the judicious plea that
they suited her complexion better. (I scored one, incidentally, for
having considered Isabel's complexion.) By the time I went to bed
I was prepared to sink the Upper Amazons in the sea, and to stab,
shoot, poison, or otherwise seriously damage the man with the
concession and the false eyebrows.

For the next three days, at intervals, he returned to the charge. He
bored me to death with his platinum and his rubies. He didn't want a
capitalist who would personally exploit the thing; he would prefer
to do it all on his own account, giving the capitalist preference
debentures of his bogus company, and a lien on the concession. I
listened and smiled; I listened and yawned; I listened and was rude;
I ceased to listen at all; but still he droned on with it. I fell
asleep on the steamer one day, and woke up in ten minutes to hear
him droning yet, "And the yield of platinum per ton was certified
to be--" I forget how many pounds, or ounces, or pennyweights.
These details of assays have ceased to interest me: like the man
who "didn't believe in ghosts," I have seen too many of them.