"The schoolboy collection." The other waved a tolerant hand. "Now I'm sure that that would have bored him."
With reverent hands he lifted a card and handed it to Hewson. "Look at that, sir; look at that. The complete set of New Brunswick—the first issue, unused."
Hewson gazed dispassionately at ten somewhat blotchy pieces of paper, and refrained from heretical utterance. To his Philistine eye the set he had bought in Samoa or elsewhere depicting jaguars and toucans were infinitely more pleasing.
"Valuable, I suppose?" he hazarded.
The other waved a deprecating hand. "Several hundred—if I chose to sell. Mercifully," he went on after a little pause, "it wasn't necessary."
For a second Hewson's shrewd eyes were fixed on him; then he resumed his study of the rarities. Money trouble, was there?
"Now this was unique—this set." His host was looking regretfully at another card. "Mauritius. And then I had to dispose of the penny orange-red. Worth the better part of a thousand pounds alone." He laid down the card. "Oh! I do hope I shall be able to get it back. I sold it to a dealer in the Strand, and I told him at the time that I should want to buy it back again. That was a month ago, and I thought I should have been able to by now."
Once again Hewson's keen eyes were fixed on the other.
"Expecting a legacy?" he remarked, casually.
"A legacy! Oh! no!" The old man smiled. "But I had a very wonderful chance, given me by an acquaintance, of doubling my small capital." For a moment Hewson stopped smoking: chances of doubling capital are not handed round as a rule by acquaintances. "And I seem to have done it," continued Mr. Crossley, rubbing his hands together. "I seem to have turned my five thousand pounds into ten. In a month. Isn't it wonderful?"