Quinney shrugged his shoulders and passed on, slightly exasperated because a butcher had stopped him in Mel Street, Melchester, with the obvious intention of pumping details out of him. The butcher walked on, chuckling to himself.
"Young Joe," he reflected, "is a-goin' to be like Old Joe. Rare old skinflint he was, to be sure!"
Quinney, meantime, had reached the dingy shop known to all Melchester as "Quinney's." The shutters were up—stout oak boards sadly in need of a coat of paint. Quinney opened a side door, and entered his own house—his—his! He could think of nothing else. Quinney's, and all it contained, belonged to him. Immediately after the funeral, when the house was full of people, the young man was dazed. And when the will was opened, and he learned that Old Joe had saved nearly ten thousand pounds, he felt positively giddy, replying vaguely to discreet whispers of congratulation with jerky sentences such as "By Gum, this is a surprise!" or, with nervous twitchings of the mouth and eyes, "Rum go, isn't it, that I should be rich?"
Later, Young Joe had gone for a walk alone, seeking the high downs above the ancient town. The keen air blew the fog out of his brain, and presently he exclaimed aloud:
"Yes; I am Quinney's."
After a pause he burst out again, speaking with such vehemence that a fat sheep who was staring at him ran away.
"Gosh! I'm jolly glad that I gave him a tip-top funeral. He'd have pinched something awful over mine."
After this explosion—silence, broken intermittently by whistling.
II
Upon entering the house, Quinney went into the shop, and disdainfully surveyed the stock-in-trade. Everything lay higgledy-piggledy. The big window was full of faked brass-work which seemed to gleam derisively at a dirty card upon which was inscribed the legend, "Genuine Antiques." Among the brass-work were bits of pottery and some framed mezzo-tints. Inside the shop, upon an unswept floor, old furniture was piled ceiling high. Some of it was really good, for mahogany was just then coming into fashion again, but in such matters Old Joe had always been behind his times. He preferred oak, the more solid the better, buying everything at country sales that happened to go cheap; assorted lots allured him irresistibly. He was incapable of arranging his wares, laughing scornfully at his son's suggestions. In the same spirit he refused to remove dust and dirt, being of the opinion that they lent a tone to antiques which were not quite genuine. He had never bought really good stuff to sell to customers outside the trade.