“Is it your idea that people should be forced to buy Rhages jars whether they want them or not?”
“The Rhages jar is not for sale,” replied the antiquity man.
“O!” exclaimed Michael. “Then what is the matter? What are you after?”
“Not your money,” said the antiquity man. “Please believe that, sir. And please believe that we are very sorry. It is—what shall I say?—what we call here kismet, fate. If you had not chanced to notice that basket, if you had not taken it down and examined it, nothing would have happened.”
“What have I to do with that?” burst out Michael. “Is it my fault if you put baskets where people can see them and then go away? Am I responsible for your carelessness?”
“Your question, sir, is unfortunately most just. But that is a part of the kismet—that having been careless ourselves, we are obliged to make you pay for it.”
“Well, how am I going to pay?” demanded Michael. “Spend the rest of my life in here?”
The antiquity man hesitated before answering.
“Yes, sir,” he said at last, softly. And he added: “Will you have your coffee now?”
Michael could hardly take it in. What did the fellow mean? Then something in the way the antiquity man looked at him made him remember about the coffee—that it would not keep him awake. For the life of him he could not help glancing down at it. How was it that he didn’t happen to drink it when they first brought it in? And if he had—He stared at the stuff in its pretty silver holder. Behind it something bright caught a flicker from the candle—a knife in the porter’s girdle. Why not? They all carried them. Yet his eye travelled to the pocket of the dark young man by the door. All of a sudden Michael knew as well as if he saw it that there was a revolver in that pocket, and that the young man had his finger on the trigger. Michael’s eyes travelled on, up to the eyes of the young man, to the eyes of them all. What strange, glistening, dark eyes they all had, too dark to see into! He found all of a sudden that he felt a little cold. He was even afraid for a moment that he was going to tremble....