Whenever his kind patron addressed him as a dear fellow Quinney's blood warmed within him. And his keen eyes sparkled at the prospect of a fight. He liked fights. As a boy he had fought to a finish other boys bigger than himself; and the victory had not invariably been with them. He remembered his victories, as he answered Lord Mel:
"I should get into the ring, my lord."
"Um! Would you! And"—his landlord laughed pleasantly—"I should lose a good tenant."
"London's the best market for knowledge," said Quinney.
"Quite, quite! Can you attempt to compete with the experts?"
The question rankled, biting deep into his soul, inciting him to further study of the things he loved. But such study grew more and more difficult. He had become the expert of Melchester. On and about his own "pitch" it was impossible to find a man with more technical knowledge than his own. In London, he would be rubbing shoulders with world-famous collectors and connoisseurs. They would "down" him at first, rub his nose in the dust of the big auction rooms; but in the end he would learn what they had learned, and triumph where they had triumphed.
III
These thoughts were trickling through his mind as he gazed at the placid Mel trickling also to troublous seas, where its clear waters would be merged and lost. Quinney squirmed at the remote possibility of being merged and lost. He muttered uneasily: "It fair furs my tongue to think o' that." The extra glass of wine had not excited him to the consideration of perilous enterprises. An extra pint might have done so. No; the old port which had ripened in the Melchester cellars exercised a benignant and restful influence. Its spirit, released at last, seemed to hover about the ancient town, loath to leave it. We may hazard the conjecture that the wine in the cellars of our universities may be potent to lull the ambitions of restless scholars, and to keep them willing prisoners in drowsy quadrangles.
Quinney lighted his pipe. He felt ripe for an important decision. For some months the necessity of enlarging his present premises had bulked large in his thoughts. A successful country dealer must carry an immense amount of stock, because he dare not specialize. His hatred for rubbish had become an obsession. More, his love of the finest specimens of furniture and porcelain interfered with the sale of them. He placed a price on these which eventually he got, but often he was constrained to wait so long for the right customer that his profit was seriously diminished. He sold quickly immense lines of moderately-priced "stuff"—chairs, tables, chests of drawers, bureaux, bookcases, bedsteads, and mantel-pieces. The "gems," as he called them, were taken to the Dream Cottage, and only shown to the worthy few.
To enlarge his premises was no ha'penny affair. Lord Mel, it is true, had offered to do so, but only on the condition that his tenant should sign a long lease; and a long lease meant remaining in Melchester. Ten, twenty years hence, he would be too old to begin again in London.