- Michael Anthony: [Anthony enters the study to see Tipton, seated in a high backed chair at his desk, viewing an hour glass. Only Tipton's right hand is visible to the viewers] You sent for me, sir?
- John Beresford Tipton: [Indicating the hour glass] A lot of grains of sand in here, aren't there, Mike?
- Michael Anthony: I shouldn't like to count them, sir.
- John Beresford Tipton: Suppose you had to find just one specific grain in this, Mike? And suppose while you were looking, time was running out.
- Michael Anthony: I hope that's not the assignment you have for me, sir.
- John Beresford Tipton: Do you think a million dollars would help?
- [Tipton hands an envelope to Anthony]
- John Beresford Tipton: Our next millionaire, Mike.
- [Anthony accepts the envelope and bows]
- Michael Anthony: [to the viewers] Our new millionaire was Karl Miller. He was one of the many dispossessed persons of the old world who found refuge in the new. Just as he had been replanted, he tried to give life to seedlings in new soil.
- Michael Anthony: [to the viewers] My name is Michael Anthony. Until his death a few years ago, I was Executive Secretary to the fabulously wealthy John Beresford Tipton. This is Silverstone, a 60,000-acre estate where Mr. Tipton lived out the last years of his life. Here he had time to indulge his many hobbies, the strangest of which was his habit of giving way to a total stranger the anonymous gift of $1,000.000.
- Michael Anthony: [Entering flower shop] Good morning. Mr. Karl Miller?
- Karl Miller AKA Count Karl Millevich: Good morning.
- Michael Anthony: My name is Michal Anthony.
- [Miller moves around the shop, tending to various flowers and plants. Anthony opens his briefcase]
- Michael Anthony: I just came to give you
- [Displays check]
- Michael Anthony: this gift. A cashier's check for $1,000,000.
- Karl Miller AKA Count Karl Millevich: [to a flower he holds] You hear? 'Good morning. I bring you a cashier's check for $1,000,000.' You hear what the stranger says?
- Michael Anthony: I meant what I said, Mr. Miller. And the tax on it has already been paid.
- Karl Miller AKA Count Karl Millevich: Nonsense!
- [Miller continues to tend his floral stock]
- Michael Anthony: Mr. Miller, this is a cashier's check. It's real. It is yours. All you have to do is sign this paper, agreeing to tell no one, except your wife, of the exact sum of this gift or how you received it. If you should tell, you'll forfeit whatever money remains.
- [Miller walks away a few steps, then suffers a mild weakness]
- Michael Anthony: Mr. Miller, are you ill?
- Karl Miller AKA Count Karl Millevich: Mr. Anthony, have you ever seen a man who died three times in his life? Look closely, you'll see an old man. No, not an old man, not any kind of man, a shell of a man. You expected me to be happy when you came with this?
- [the check]
- Michael Anthony: I'd hoped you'd be.
- Karl Miller AKA Count Karl Millevich: A fortune - 'the most miserable fortune is the safest for there's no fear of anything worse.' Ovid said that in his Epistulae ex Ponto.
- Michael Anthony: A Roman who was also banished from his country, I believe.
- Karl Miller AKA Count Karl Millevich: Yes, but I was not banished from my country. I escaped, or should I say I lost my country. Three things I loved - my country, my wife, my child. Three things that I lost.
- Michael Anthony: I am sorry, Mr. Miller.
- Karl Miller AKA Count Karl Millevich: I have been in this country for almost twenty years.
- [Indicates his plants, flowers and seeds]
- Karl Miller AKA Count Karl Millevich: These are all of the things that are alive for me.
- Michael Anthony: Perhaps you could return...
- Karl Miller AKA Count Karl Millevich: To Czechoslovakia? That is not alive for me now. Besides, my wife and girl are here
- Michael Anthony: But I thought you said they were...
- Karl Miller AKA Count Karl Millevich: My wife is buried here. My girl?
- [Shrugs shoulders]
- Michael Anthony: Then your daughter is still alive?
- Karl Miller AKA Count Karl Millevich: I do not know she is dead, if that is what you mean. Gone. Vanished.
- Michael Anthony: But why didn't you check with the police? The Missing Persons Bureau?
- Karl Miller AKA Count Karl Millevich: I have told you, Mr. Anthony, that I had died. A dead man does not know which way to turn. I do not know where I went or what I did. I only know that one day I recognized everything was lost. I would have been lost, too, except, I found out somehow that one can keep alive by helping to keep other things alive, like my plants, my seeds.
- Michael Anthony: [Glancing at check] Mr. Miller, this could be a seed - of hope.
- Karl Miller AKA Count Karl Millevich: Hope? You think with this I could dare to hope? That with so much money, I may find my girl?
- Michael Anthony: I hope so. Now if you would sign this paper...