In due time, also, he became a member of the inner ring of big dealers. They tried to "freeze him out" by inflating prices, often at a serious loss to themselves, but eventually they were constrained to admit that the Melchester man was too shrewd for them, with a knowledge of values which seemed to have fallen upon him like the dew from heaven. At any moment he might stop bidding with an abruptness very disconcerting to the older men, leaving them with the lapin which they were trying to impose upon him.
In those early days he found the Caledonian market a happy hunting-ground, securing immense quantities of Georgian steel fire-irons, fenders, and dog-grates, at that time in no demand. He stored them in his immense cellars, covering them with a villainous preparation of his own which defied rust.
"Good stuff to lay down," he remarked.
Afterwards the big dealers asked him how he had contrived to foresee the coming demand for old cut glass. Of this he had bought immense quantities also. He answered them in his own fashion.
"Can you tell me why one breed of dog noses out truffles?"
He bought innumerable spinets, good, bad, and indifferent, with reckless confidence. Even Tomlin remonstrated.
"What are you going to do with them?"
"You'll see," said Quinney.
One more blunder—and the use to which he turned it—must be chronicled. By this time he was recognized as an expert on eighteenth-century furniture. But he admitted that there were one or two who knew more than he. Tomlin, for example, who would drop in at least once a week for a chat and a glass of brown sherry. Upon one of these visits he found Quinney in a state of enthusiasm over a Chippendale armchair, unearthed in a small provincial town. Tomlin examined it carefully, and pronounced it a fake.
Quinney refused to believe this; but ultimately conviction that he had been "had" once more was forced upon him.