THE WHAT-NOT.
"Look here," I said, "this is indeed serious. The what-not's moulting."
"It's been like that for a long time," said Anna. "But I suppose it's getting worse."
"I'm afraid so. And we must have something reliable," I said, "to stand dishes and things on at meals. We can't pile them all on the table at once like a cairn. To tell you the truth," I added, "I've had my eye on an old oak dresser at Smalley's for a long time. It would be a good investment—at a price."
"Yes," said Anna; "but I suppose the price would be the earth and the fulness thereof."
"That is precisely what I propose to find out, and if they'll take anything less than thirty pounds it's ours. In the meantime," I added, "we'll dope the poor old what-not with furniture cream and see about driving it to market."
There are two accepted methods of dealing at old furniture shops. The first is to approach them, well-groomed, be-ringed and perfumed, smoking a jewelled gasper and entering the shop with a circular movement of the arm to expose the gold wrist-watch that will crawl up the sleeve at wrong moments, and to ask in a commanding voice, "How much is the—ah—oak-dresser—what?"
The presiding genius (and being a dealer he is usually a genius), who had really ticketed the article thirty pounds, approaches it, removes the ticket by a little sleight-of-hand and says, "Thirty-eight guineas, Sir," without a blush (the dealer who blushes is hounded from the ring). This method of dealing is direct action of the most dangerous kind.
The other method, and the one I most usually adopt, I can best illustrate by detailing my interview with the proprietor of Smalley's on the occasion when I went dressering.
I sidled into the shop in garments carefully selected from my pre-wardrobe and wearing a vacant expression. Picking up a piece of china I examined it carefully, turning it upside down, as though to search for a pottery mark, which I probably should never have recognised.
"H'm, not bad," I said.
"One of the best bits of Dresden I've ever had," said the dealer. "I want——"
"Ah, German," I said, putting the thing down hurriedly as though it might be mined. "It may be a good piece, but—what is the price of that brass fender?"
"Seven-ten, old Dutch and a bargain," said the dealer laconically.
"But probably wouldn't fit the fireplace in my mind. Though," I added to myself, "it might fit the one in our dining-room."
I thought it about time to notice the dresser, not to attempt to buy it yet—oh dear no, but merely to fire the first shot in the campaign as it were.
"What kind of a dresser do you call this?" I said. "Slightly moth-eaten, isn't it?"
"That's nothing; merely age. It's Welsh," he added, "and a beauty. I wish I could get hold of more like it. Look at those legs; I'll guarantee you won't——Excuse me, Sir."
An immaculately dressed individual had entered the shop, and the gentleman trading as Smalley called an assistant to serve him. By the time he returned to me I had wandered far into the recesses of the emporium and was busily examining a walnut stool with a woolwork seat.
"You haven't one like this in oak, I suppose? This one," I said, "would hardly suite my suit. That sounds wrong, but you apprehend my meaning."
"I haven't," he said simply. I could see that he was tiring rapidly, but wasn't absolutely ripe for plucking.
So I priced about a dozen pieces of china, admired several pictures and pieces of Stuart needlework, descanted on the beauties of a set of wheatear chairs, pulled a small rosewood table about until its claw and ball feet nearly dropped off from exhaustion, and finally led him back to the Welsh dresser.
"What's the price of the Scotsman?" I said easily, having seen thirty guineas on the ticket during the preliminary examination.
"Twenty-nine pounds to you," he said wearily. He evidently knew the strict rules of the game.
"But look at those legs," I said. "They're frightfully bent, aren't they?"
"That's one of the best features about it," he said. "Real Queen Anne, those legs are."
"Oh, were hers like that? I didn't know," I said. "Look here, I'll give you twenty-eight pounds, spot cash."
"Very well," he said. "I like to do business."
"I beg pardon," said a voice behind me, which, in turning, I discovered to belong to the assistant, "but that dresser's sold. The gentleman who's just left bought it."
As I was looking for the ticket (which had disappeared), I couldn't help overhearing the assistant's aside to his employer.
"Thirty-five guineas cash," he said.
There is something, after all, to be said for direct action.