The antiquer first locates an antique-shop, which he does by walking along a street until he is struck in the nose by a peculiarly fusty odor, faintly resembling recently disinterred boots, and finds the proprietor sitting in a gloomy corner of the shop writing, or pretending to write, in a ledger and giving an excellent but unconscious imitation of a large spider observing the approach of a juicy bluebottle fly.
The customer greets the proprietor simply but elegantly, and the proprietor, going on with his writing, replies in an apparently perfunctory and preoccupied manner. Then the customer proceeds to look about. He notes without interest the worm-eaten sideboards and chests, the paintings of anæmic bunches of flowers, the bronze mortars and pestles made in Florence, the Venetian mirrors that make the face look as though it had been run through a clothes-wringer, the venerable priests’ vestments and coatments and pantments, and the hanging silver lamps made out of superb tin; and finally his eye lights on, say, a marble plaque of a Pope’s head from a monastery wall.
It has an air, that plaque. He examines it carefully while pretending to scrutinize a small but offensive painting of Saint Mark’s by Moonlight. The buying fever seizes him, and he prepares for action.
“Have you not a pair of beaten-iron candlesticks in the Venetian manner, projecting straight out from the wall?” he asks the proprietor, making gestures like a candlestick. He asks this question in order to provide a smoke-screen for his future movements.
“No, signore,” replies the proprietor gloomily. “We had them, but they were sold yesterday.”
“Ah,” says the customer in disappointment. He starts as though to go; and then, as an afterthought, he picks up a bronze mortar and weighs it meditatively. “This little thing, now,” he ventures. “The price unquestionably is prohibitive, eh?”
“A very fine thing, very old and very fine,” says the dealer, examining it appreciatively. “And very cheap, signore; very cheap. Four hundred lire only, signore.”
The signore laughs loudly and bitterly and turns away with a shudder. “Cheap!” he ejaculates in scornful tones, “Cheap! You mistake me for two millionaires. Madonna! What a price! For such a thing as that good-for-nothing imitation in the corner, that pretended Pope’s head, you would probably charge such an impossible price as one hundred lire!”
“Hah!” says the dealer, staring carefully at the customer. “Hah!” Then he goes over to the corner and looks at the Pope’s head as though he were seeing it for the first time.
“Signore,” he says solemnly, “this is a very fine and very rare piece. It is an historical piece. I will sell it for one tenth of its value.”