“Very old picture, that,” observed the lady behind the counter, speaking with a kind of heavy and mechanical civility. “Been in our family for years and years. Not for sale, of course. We only hangs it up there because there ain’t any other room for it. And what can I get for you, please, sir?”
“Not for sale, eh?” said Mr. Pincott.
“No, sir,” she replied, definitely. “There’s another gent just been in and tried ’ard to buy it, but I ’ad to refuse him. Was you thinking of choc’lates, sir? We’ve got some just fresh in.”
Of certain negotiations which, despite the lady’s unwillingness, followed so swiftly and with such continuity of impact, it is superfluous to write. Suffice it to record that Mr. Pincott, fortified and stimulated by the thought that here was something he was snatching from the very grasp of Mr. Dobb, was content to believe that the intrinsic unloveliness of the picture did not matter, and that its value was not its value as a work of art, but as a piece of property for which Mr. Lister would pay handsomely.
So at last the lady, conceded her sex’s privilege, changed her mind, and was at last prevailed upon to part with the picture at a price which was only satisfactory to Mr. Pincott for the justification it afforded him to demand profits on the higher scale from Mr. Simon Lister.
In some excitement and a decrepit cab, Mr. Pincott carted his purchase direct to that gentleman’s abode in the suburbs of Shorehaven. Mr. Dobb, who had been doing a little reconnoitring duty in his turn, saw the vehicle turn into the London road with its burden, and he followed after it on foot.
Staggering spectacularly beneath his load, Mr. Pincott was ushered into the presence of Mr. Lister.
“Lawks!” was Mr. Lister’s simple tribute to the dramatic quality of the occasion. “Whatever ’ave you got there?” he asked, somewhat unnecessarily. “A picture?”
“Pickcher?” said Mr. Pincott, setting down the landscape flat on the table, and mopping his forehead. “It’ll be about the finest thing in your collection. I bought it for you, a rare bargain. ’Alf the dealers in the kingdom was after it, but I managed to diddle ’em!”
“It—it ain’t very ’andsome,” mildly criticized the worthy amateur.