"And now to business," said my guest. His whimsical gray eyes had become studious and detached from our surroundings. He had a generous mouth, which he seemed habitually to sew up in a close-drawn seam, but this would suddenly and pleasantly rip in moments of forgetfulness. Being the collector at this moment, the mouth was tightly stitched.
"Let me begin this way," he said. "There are exactly six pieces in that house that will prevent my being honest so long as they are not mine. I am not unmindful of your succor, Major. I'll prove that to you if you look me up in town,—send me a wire and a room shall be waiting for you,—and I am enraptured by that small and lively brown lady. Nevertheless I shall remain a collector and, humanly speaking, an ingrate, a wolf, a caitiff, until those six articles are mine. Make them mine, and for the remainder of that stuff you shall have the benefit of an experience that has been of incredible cost. Accept my figure, and I promise you as man to man to de-Cohenize myself utterly."
"They are yours," I said—"what are they and what is the figure? Clem—Mr. Price's glass."
"There—you disarm me. One bit of haggling or hesitation might have hardened me even now; the serpent within me would have lifted its head and struck. But you have saved yourself—and very well for that! The articles are those six ball-and-claw-foot chairs with violin backs. I will pay fifty dollars apiece for those. Remember—it is the voice of Cohen. The chairs are worth more—some day they'll fetch twice that; but, really, I must throw a sop to that collector-Cerberus within me. He's entitled to something. He had the wit to fetch me here."
"The chairs are yours," I said, wondering if I had not mistaken his offer, but determining not to betray this.
"A little memorandum of sale, if you please—and I'll give you my check. That larger sideboard would also have stood in the way, but those glass handles aren't the originals."
The formality was soon despatched, and my curious friend became truly human.
"Now, Blake, this is from the grateful wretch whose life you have not only saved but enriched. Well, there's an excellent lot of stuff there. I've got the pick, from a collector's standpoint—though not from a money valuation. I can't tell what it will bring, but enough to put our youngish old friend easy for some time to come. You box it up, as much as she wants to let go, and send it to the Empire Auction Rooms—here's the card. They're plain auction-room people, you understand,—wouldn't hesitate to rob you in a genteel, auction way,—but I'll be there and see that they don't. Some of those other pieces I may want, but I'll take a bidding chance on them like a man, and I'll watch the whole thing through and see that it's straight."
Billy Durgin told me that Cohen and James Walsingham Price left on the night train going East. Billy noticed that Cohen seemed morose, and heard him exclaim something that sounded like "Goniff!" under his breath, as Price turned away from him after a brief chat.
For Little Arcady the appalling wonder was still to dawn. Load after load of the despised furniture went into freight-cars, until the home of Miss Caroline was only comfortably furnished. This was sensational enough—that the things should be thought worth shipping about the country with freights so high.