"I never saw such a dirty place," said the foremost, a large lady who couldn't, by any circumstance of fate, have been anybody's wife but Rocksworth's. "It's filthy! What do you want?"
"I've bought this thing here for seventy-five. You said I couldn't get it for a nickle under a thousand. And say, this man tells me the hall seat here belonged to Pontius Pilate in—"
"Pardon me," I interrupted, "I merely said that he sat in it. I am not trying to deceive you, sir."
"And the treaty was signed on this table," said Mr. Riley-Werkheimer. He addressed himself to a plump young lady with a distorted bust and a twenty-two inch waist. "Maude, what do you know about the Roman-Teutonic treaty? We'll catch you now, my friend," he went on, turning to me. "My daughter is up in ancient history. She's an authority."
Miss Maude appeared to be racking her brain. I undertook to assist her.
"I mean the second treaty, after the fall of Nuremburg," I explained.
"Oh," she said, instantly relieved. "Was it really signed here, right here in this hall? Oh, Father! We must have that table."
"You are sure there was a treaty, Maude?" demanded her parent accusingly.
"Certainly," she cried. "The Teutons ceded Alsace-Lorraine to—"
"Pardon me once more," I cried, and this time I plead guilty to a blush, "you are thinking of the other treaty—the one at Metz, Miss Riley-Werkheimer. This, as you will recall, ante-dates that one by—oh, several years."