"Not a bad idea," approved Frederik. "See what you can do about it, won't you? I want it cleared out. And if I can get rid of it and do it at a profit, too, why, all the better."
"If I could get that old clock," put in Mrs. Batholommey, the light of the bargain hunt shining in her large face, "I might consent to take it off your hands. Of course it isn't really worth anything. But——"
"I've an idea," replied Frederik, with charming dearth of civility, "that it's worth a lot more than you'd pay me for it."
"I hope," she snapped angrily as she glared at Frederik, "that your poor dear uncle is where he can see his mistake now!"
"I am where I can see several," said the Dead Man to ears that could not hear.
"Do you know," pursued Mrs. Batholommey, whose depths of professional sweetness had been turned faintly sub-acid by the events of the day—"do you know, Frederik, what I would like to say to your uncle if I could just once stand face to face with him, this very minute?"
"Yes," smiled Peter Grimm sadly, as he looked deep into her eyes, "I know."
"I should say to him——" began Mrs. Batholommey.
Then she checked herself as at some impulse she herself did not understand, and finished somewhat lamely:
"No, I wouldn't say it, either. He's dead. And we're told we must speak no ill of the dead. Though, for my part, I never could see what right we gain to immunity just by dying. And—oh, by the way, Henry," she broke off as her husband and the lawyer passed out of the vestibule, "Kathrien expects you back for supper. Don't forget, will you, dear? Good-night, Colonel Lawton."