“Well, what I should adwise ye to do is to take this 'ere lace to some of them hold furnitoor shops. I know what this is. I 'ate to see a chap like ye put to it like this, that's why I tell ye. 'Ard on your woman, but—there's a shop hup on Fourth Avenue where they buy such things. A Dutchman by the name of Kling, right on the corner—you can't miss it. Take it hup to 'im and tell 'im I sent ye—we often 'elps one another.”
Dalton crumpled up the black wad, slid the package under his coat, and without a word of thanks left the shop.
This was not the first time Blobbs had sent Kling a customer. Indeed, there had always been more or less of a trade between the two establishments. For, while Mrs. Blobbs had a license and could advance money at reasonable rates, her principal business was in old-clothes and ready-to-wear finery. Being near “The Avenue” and well known to its denizens, many of their outgrown and out-of-fashion garments had passed across her counter. Here the young man who pounded away on Masie's piano, the night of her birthday party, borrowed, for a trifle, his evening suit. Here Codman had exchanged a three-year-old overcoat, which refused to be buttoned across his constantly increasing girth, for enough money to pay for the velvet cuffs and collar of the new one purchased on Sixth Avenue. Here Mrs. Codman bought remnants of finery with which to adorn her young daughter's skirts when she went to the ball given by the Washington chowder party. Here, too, was where the undertaker sold the clothes of the man who stepped off a ten-story building in the morning and was laid out that same night in Digwell's back room, his friends depositing a fresh suit for him to be buried in, telling the undertaker to do with the old one as he pleased. And to this old-clothes shop flocked many another denizen of side streets, who at one time or another had reached crises in their careers which nothing else could relieve.
Mrs. Blobbs's curt refusal to receive the lace only added fuel to the blazing thought that had flared up in Dalton's mind when he recalled the certificates. Holding on to them had caused one explosion. The mantilla might prove another such bomb. He dared not leave it at home and he could not carry it for an indefinite time on his person. If the man Kling would pay any decent price for it, he could have it and welcome.
With the grim spectre still linking arms with him he hurried on, making short-cuts across the streets, until he arrived at Kling's corner. At this point he paused. His terror must not betray him. Shaking himself free of the spectre, he assumed his one-time nonchalant air, entered the store and walked down the middle aisle, between the lines of sideboards, bureaus and high desks drawn up in dress parade. Over the barricade of the small office he caught the shine of Otto's bald head, the only other live occupant, except Fudge, who had crept out from behind a bureau, and bounded back with a growl. Fudge had sniffed around the legs of a good many people, and might have written their biographies, but Dalton was new to him. Few thieves had ever entered Kling's doors.
“I have just left your old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Blobbs,” he began gayly, “who have advised me to bring to you rather a rare piece of lace belonging to my wife. Fine, isn't it?” He loosened the bundle and shook out the folds of the mantilla.
Otto put on his glasses, felt the texture of the piece between his fingers, and spread out the pattern for closer examination. “Yes, dot's a good piece of lace. Vot you vant to do vid it? Dere's a hole in it, you see,” and he thrust a pudgy finger into the gash.
“Yes, I know,” returned Dalton, who, with his eye still on the dog, had been crushing it together so that the tear might not show; “but that is easily remedied. I want to sell it. Mr. Blobbs tells me it is worth a hundred dollars.”
“Is dot so? Vell—vell—a hundred tollars! Dot's a good deal of money.” He had begun to wrap it up, tucking in the ends. “No—dot Fudge dog don't bite—go away, you. T'ank you for lettin' me see it, tell Mr. Blobbs, but I don't vant it at dot price. And I doan know I vant it at any price. Dey doan buy dem t'ings any more.”
Dalton saw that the mantilla had favorably impressed the dealer. He had caught the look of pleasure when the lace was first unrolled, reading the man's brain as he had often read the brains of the men at home who listened to some rose-colored prospectus. These experiences had taught him that there was always a supreme moment when one must stop praising an article for sale, whether it were a rubber concession from an African chief or a pound of tea over a grocer's counter. This moment had arrived with Kling.