Felix laughed gently. “No, I wish she were. She is Mr. Kling's child.”
“And your name?”
“O'Day.”
“Irish, of course—well, all the same, come down any morning this week. My name is Ganger; I'm on the fourth floor—been there twenty-two years. You'll have to walk up—we all do. Yes, I'll expect you.”
Kling, whom Felix consulted, began at once to demur. He knew all about the building on 10th Street. More than one of his old frames—part of the clearing-out sale of some Southern homestead, the portraits being reserved because unsalable—had resumed their careers on the walls of the Academy as guardians and protectors of masterpieces painted by the denizens of this same old rattletrap, the Studio Building. Some of its tenants, too, had had accounts with him—which had been running for more than a year. Bridley, the marine painter; Manners, who took pupils; Springlake, the landscapist; and half a dozen others had been in the habit of dropping into his shop on the lookout for something good in Dutch cabinets at half-price, or no price at all, until Felix, without knowing where they had come from, had put an end to the practice.
“Got a fellow up to Kling's who looks as if he had been a college athlete, and knows it all. Can't fool him for a cent,” was the talk now, instead of “Keep at the old Dutchman and you may get it. He don't know the difference between a Chippendale sideboard and a shelf rack from Harlem. Wait for a rainy day and go in. He'll be feeling blue, and you'll be sure to get it.”
Kling, therefore, when he heard some days later, of Felix's proposed visit, began turning over his books, looking up several past-due accounts. But Felix would have none of it.
“I'm going on a collecting tour, Mr. Kling, this lovely June morning,” he laughed, “but not for money. We will look after that later on. And I will take Masie. Come, child, get your hat. Mr. Ganger wanted you to come, and so do I. Call Hans, Mr. Kling, if the shop gets full. We will be back in an hour.”
“Vell, you know best,” answered Kling in final surrender. “Ven it comes to money, I know. You go 'long, little Beesvings. I mind de shop.”
“And I'll take Fudge,” the child cried, “and we'll stop at Gramercy Park.”