It sounds absurd, but when I discovered what Berrisford was about to do I felt curiously excited and embarrassed. Of course I knew that lots of people pawn things, but I had never seen it done before, and like most of the things you can think about and read about in cold blood, I found that it made my heart beat a good deal faster actually to do it. In fact, I did n't care to do it at all, and told Berrisford so in an undertone; but he said,—
"Why not? There 's nothing wrong in it. You own something more or less valuable and you happen for the moment to need something else; why should n't you exchange them? If the soiled vampire who runs this place (what's become of him, anyhow?) would give me two small roasted ducks and some bread and butter and currant jelly and two little cups of coffee and a waiter to serve them, and a mediæval banquet hall to eat them in, and a perfectly awful orchestra behind a thicket of imitation palm-trees to play Hungarian rhapsodies while we ate—instead of five dollars and a half, I should be just as well pleased; because it will amount to about the same thing in the end."
Just then the proprietor of the shop emerged from behind a mound of trousers and overcoats and shuffled toward us very unwillingly, it seemed to me. But Berrisford said he was always like that.
"You can't expect a display of pleasing emotions for a paltry five per cent a month," Berrisford whispered in my ear. I don't think, however, that the pawnbroker could have looked pleasant no matter what per cent he got. He took Berri's beautiful sleeve-links (they 're made of four antique Japanese gold pieces), went into a sort of glass cage built around a high desk and a safe, and did all sorts of queer things to them. He scratched the under side of two of the coins with a small file; then he dabbed some kind of a liquid that he got out of a tiny bottle on the rough places and examined them through one of those inane spool things that jewellers hang on their eyeballs just before telling you that you 've busted your mainspring. Next he weighed them in a pair of scales that he fished out of a drawer in the desk, and finally he held up his claw of a hand with all the fingers distended, for us to inspect through the glass.
"Why, you dreadful old man!" Berrisford exclaimed indignantly. "You gave me five and a half last time. I wouldn't think of taking less."
For a moment I supposed that the game was up and we 'd have to walk all the way back to Cambridge and be too late for luncheon when we got there; for Berrisford took his sleeve-links and strolled over to the door, saying in a loud voice,—
"Come on, Tommy; there 's a better one across the street." But just as we were leaving, "the soiled vampire" made a guttural sound that Berrisford seemed to understand, and we went back and got the amount Berri considered himself entitled to.
"The quality of mercy is a little strained this morning," he said when Mr. Hirsch went into the glass cage again to make out the ticket. I always had an idea that a pawn ticket was a piece of blue cardboard—something like a return theatre ticket. But it is n't, at all. It's simply a thin slip of paper resembling a check—only smaller.
Well, we had a delightful luncheon. After luncheon we thought of going to the matinée and sitting in the gallery, but Berri all at once exclaimed, as if the idea were a sort of inspiration,—
"I 'll tell you what we 'll do; let 's economize. I 've always wanted to; they say you can be awfully nice and contented if you never spend a cent, but just think noble thoughts."