The bill was produced and shown to the stranger.
"See? Paid four pounds seventeen for it, just five weeks ago. Look at the date. You shall have it for six pounds, and, by Gum! I'll make you this offer. You can return it to me any day you like within a year, and I'll give you five pound ten for it. How's that, as between man and man?"
These seemingly artless methods captivated the "think-it-overs" and the "rather-nicers," who frequent curiosity shops in ever-increasing numbers. Mothers brought daughters to Soho Square to acquire historical information. Quinney refused to sell a Jacobean armchair because it was so useful an object-lesson to young and inquiring minds.
"Look at that, madam," he would say. Perhaps the lady would murmur softly: "It is rather nice, isn't it?" And the flapper would exclaim enthusiastically: "Mumsie, it's perfectly lovely!"
"Much more than that!" Quinney would add, with mysterious chucklings. "See that rose? It's a Stuart rose. And that crown on the front splat is an emblem of loyalty to the Merry Monarch."
"Dear me! You hear that, Kitty!"
"Pay particular attention to the legs, ladies. Ball and paw, the lion's paw, with hair above them, indicatin' the strength of the Constitootion after the Restoration. Chapter of English history, that chair."
He could embellish such simple themes according to fancy, and with due regard for the patience of his listener. To Susan he spoke of these intellectual exercises as "my little song and dance."
II
Meanwhile, Posy was growing up, becoming a tall, slender, pretty girl. She attended a day-school in Orchard Street—a select seminary for young ladies. Susan accompanied her to and from Orchard Street. By this time she had accepted, with a serenity largely temperamental, the fate allotted to her. Once more Quinney was absorbed in his business. Adversity had brought husband and wife together, prosperity sundered them. Very rarely does it happen that a successful man can spare time to spend on his wife. The charming slackers make the most congenial mates. Compensation has thus ordained it, wherein lie tragedy and comedy. Many women, to the end of their lives, are incapable of realizing this elementary fact. They want their husbands to climb high—the higher the better; they understand, perhaps more clearly than men, what can be seen and enjoyed from the tops; they pluck, often as a matter of course, and gobble up the grapes of Eschol, but they refuse to accept the inevitable penalties of supreme endeavour. Their husbands return to them almost foundered, fit only to eat and sleep. In the strenuous competition of to-day what else is possible?