After supper, when the old man had put on his slippers and an ancient smoking cap that made him look like a Turkish pasha, he took from the chimneypiece a pipe and a jar of tobacco, drew the easy chair to the fire, and began to read the evening paper.
“By the way, boy,” he remarked, quizzingly, “have you started yet on that marvellous thing you were clever enough to buy at Ipswich?”
“Crowdham Market, sir.”
“Crowdham Market, was it? Well, my father used to say that fools and money soon part company.”
June, who was clearing the table, could not forbear from darting at the young man a gleam of triumph. It was clear that Uncle Si believed no more in the windmill, not to mention the trees and the water than did she.
A start had been made, but William confessed to a fear that it might be a long job to get it clean.
“And when you get it clean,” said his master, “what do you expect to find, eh?—that’s if you’re lucky enough to find anything.”
“I don’t quite know,” said William frankly.
“Neither do I,” S. Gedge Antiques scratched a cheek of rather humorous cynicism. And then in sheer expansion of mood, he went to the length of winking at his niece. “Perhaps, boy,” he said, “you’ll find that Van Roon that was cut out of its frame at the Louvre in the Nineties, and has never been seen or heard of since.”
“Was there one, sir?” asked William, interested and alert.