"He might pay more."
"Not he. I'll accept your offer, Mr. Lark, with many thanks. I'll not forget this."
Gustavus returned to Oxford Street. He sold the commode to an American millionaire for two thousand five hundred pounds, but Quinney, fortunately for his peace of mind, never discovered this till some years had passed.
He told Tom Tomlin that Lark was a perfect gentleman, and that the story of the Rapper and the London "Cries" was a malicious lie on the face of it.
Tomlin sniffed.
CHAPTER XI
MORE BLUDGEONINGS
I
The loss of four hundred pounds stimulated our hero to greater efforts. Deep down in his heart, moreover, lay the desire to rehabilitate himself. Susan had spared him exasperating reproaches, but he perceived, so he fancied, pity in her faithful eyes. Her ministrations recalled that humiliating Channel crossing, when his superiority as a male had been buried in a basin! Let us admit that he wanted to play the god with Susan, to shake the sphere of home with his Olympian nod, to hear her soft ejaculation: "Joe, dear, you are wonderful!"
At this crisis in his fortunes he found himself, for the first time in his life, with time on his hands. His premises were overstocked to such an extent that he dared not run the temptation of attending sales. To succeed greatly, he only needed customers, and they shunned him as if Soho Square were an infected district.