FUR COAT.
CUFF LINKS.
CIGARETTE CASE.
TIE PIN.
MATCH BOX.
WATCH.
CHAIN.
LITTLE BRASS MAN.
Reverse the order of this and you arrive at the sequence in which they returned. And here follows a detailed account of the history of each object--detailed, where details are possible and of interest.
Fur Coat. This pretentious-looking article was bought by John as a bargain. One day, when paying his rent to the landlord--a man who smelted and refined the gold that has an acquaintance with false teeth--he was asked if he would like to buy something very cheap. Well--you know what a temptation that is. So great a temptation is it, that you ask first "How much?" and only when you have heard the price, do you inquire the nature of the article. Four pounds ten, he was told. Then what was it? A fur-lined overcoat with astrachan collar and cuffs! There must be a presumption on the part of the seller that you know nothing of fur coats, or he will not talk to you like this. Certainly it was cheap, but even then, it would not have been bought had John not overheard the former possessor offering to buy it back at four pounds five. Such a circumstance as this doubles the temptation. So seldom is it that one comes across a bargain when one has any money in one's pocket, that it is impossible, when one does, to let it go to another man. John bought it. It would be a useful thing to visit editors in when he had no money.
But you would scarcely credit the treachery of a fur-lined coat with astrachan collar and cuffs. John had no idea of it. It played fiendish tricks upon him. Just as he determined to mount upon a 'bus, it whispered in his ear--"You can't do this--you really can't. If you want to drive, you'd better get a hansom. If not, then you'd better walk."
It was of no avail that he complained of not being able to afford a hansom and of being in too great a hurry to walk. That heavy astrachan collar whispered again:
"You can't ride on a 'bus anyway--look at that man laughing at you already----"
And with a fiendish joy, it gave him sudden and magical insight into the jeering minds of all those people in the 'bus. He relinquished the 'bus then. He called a hansom; he was in a hurry and he drove away, while the astrachan collar preens itself with pride and delight as it looks in the little oblong mirror.
And this is not the only treachery which the fur coat played upon him. As he descended from the cab, a man rushed out of nowhere to protect that coat from the wheels, and overcome with pleasure, the fur coat whispered in his ear once more--"Give him twopence--you can't ignore him."
"I could have kept my coat off the wheel quite easily myself," John replied--"He was really only in the way."
"Never mind," exclaimed the astrachan collar--"If you're going to be seen about with me, you'll have to give him twopence."