Picture to yourself Tomlin's amazement and disgust when he paid his next visit to the ancient town some three weeks after the sale of the panels. And it must be admitted that he had reason for complaint, and that his first comment upon Quinney's astounding proceedings was justified.
"You don't seem to have thought of me!"
"I didn't," said Quinney, with admirable simplicity.
"I told you about that fellow in Brittany; I sent you to him; I provided half the cash, and I was counting upon big profits. You've let me down badly."
"Looks like it, to be sure!"
"Damned outrage, I call it!"
"So it is; but I was desperate. Susan was dying. I never thought of you at all. Now, look here! Don't overheat yourself! You was counting upon a fifty per cent. profit."
"Perhaps more."
"You do like to get your fore-feet into the trough. Any Jew blood in your family? Keep cool! At first we got our big profit, and how much stuff did we sell? Very little. Now I've orders coming in faster than I can fill 'em, and your profit, small and quick, will knock endways the big and slow. See?"
Eventually he made Tomlin see, and the London dealer had to admit that Lord Mel, played by Quinney as a trump card, introduced a new element into the game. The orders were coming in.