"Does he mention anything about beans?" Burton asked anxiously.
"The perfect food referred to," he said, "appears to have been produced in the shape of small beans. They are to be eaten with great care, and to ensure permanency in the results, a green leaf of the little tree is to follow the consumption of the bean."
"A thousand thanks, professor!" he cried. "That is the one thing we were seeking to discover. The leaves, of course!"
Mr. Cowper looked at his visitor in amazement.
"My young friend," he said, "are you going to tell me that you have seen one of these beans?"
"Not only that but I have eaten one," Burton announced,--"in fact I have eaten two."
"Where are they?" he exclaimed. "Show me one! Where is the tree? How did the man come to write this? Where did he write it? Let me look at one of the beans!"
Burton produced the little silver snuff-box in which he carried them. With his left hand he kept the professor away.
"Mr. Cowper," he said, "I cannot let you touch them or handle them. They mean more to me than I can tell you, yet there they are. Look at them. And let me tell you this. That old superstition you have spoken of has truth in it. These beans are indeed a spiritual food. They alter character. They have the most amazing effect upon a man's moral system."
"Young man," Mr. Cowper insisted, "I must eat one."
"Mr. Cowper," he said, "there are reasons why I find it very hard to deny you anything, but as regards those three beans, you will neither eat one nor even hold it in your hand. Sit down and I will tell you a story which sounds as though it might have happened a thousand years ago. It happened within the last three months. Listen."
Burton told his story with absolute sincerity. The professor listened with intense interest. It was perhaps strange that, extraordinary though it was, he never for one moment seemed to doubt the truth of what he heard. When Burton had finished, he rose to his feet in a state of great excitement.
"This is indeed wonderful," he declared. "It is more wonderful, even, than you can know of. The legend of the perfect food appears in the manuscripts of many centuries. It antedates literature by generations. There is a tomb in the interior of Japan, sacred to a saint who for seventy years worked for the production of this very bean. That, let me tell you, was three thousand years ago. My young friend, you have indeed been favored!"