And sometimes they replied----
"Oh, yes--I expect so. I didn't think it would be cheap. It's so beautiful, isn't it? Of course--really--really old."
And it was so hard to withstand the flattery of that. A smile of pleasure would lurk for a moment about his eyes. He would lean forward through the dark curtains of brocades and tapestries and reach it down for inspection.
"It is," he would say in the gratified tone of the true collector--"It is the most perfect specimen I have ever seen. You see the work here--this glaze, that colour----" and in a moment, before he was aware of what he was doing, he would be pointing out its merits with a quivering finger of pride.
"Oh, yes--I think I must have it," the customer would suddenly say--"I can't miss the opportunity. It would go so well with the things in my collection."
Then the old gentleman realised his folly. Then the frown returned, redoubled in its forbidding scowl. He began putting the Dresden figure back again in the window from whence it had come.
"But I said I'd take it," the customer would exclaim more eager than ever for its possession.
"Yes--yes--I know--but the price is--well it's prohibitive. I want seventy-five pounds for that figure."
"Seventy-five!"
"Yes--I can't take anything less."