“That don’t alter the fact that it’s really second-hand. There’s no market for this sort of thing. Second-hand uprights, maybe, but not these things. Besides, it ain’t a partic’lar good tone.”
“I tell you it’s a lovely tone. Wants tuning a bit, that’s all. D’you think you know more about pianos than I do?”
“Can’t say, ma’am, whether I do or I don’t.”
“Do you ever go to London concerts?”
“No time for it, ma’am.”
“Have you ever heard of Catherine Weston?”
“The name ain’t familiar to me. What about ’er?”
Catherine paused as if to recover from a blow, and continued more calmly: “She said this piano had a lovely tone. She played at the Albert Hall.”
The man ground his heel into the carpet.
“Well, ma’am,” he replied, “if Miss Catherine Weston thinks this piano is worth more than sixty pounds you’d better ask her to buy it off of you. All I’m saying is this, it ain’t worth no more to me than what I offered. Sixty pounds, I said: I dunno even if I’d go to sixty guineas. Take it or leave it for sixty pounds. That’s my rule in this business. Make an offer and never go back on it, an’ never go no further on it. That’s what I calls fair business. If you think that you can get more’n sixty anywhere else you can try. I ain’t arskin’ you to let me ’ave it. Reely, I dunno that I want it. I might ’ave it takin’ up ware’ouse room for months on end.... But of course if you was to come back to me after trying other places I couldn’t offer you no more’n fifty-five—guineas, maybe. Wouldn’t be fair to myself, in a kind of manner.... Sixty—look ’ere. I’ll be generous and say guineas—sixty guineas if you’ll sell it now—cash down, mind! If not——”