The “antiquing” went on harder than ever. Every time the Thompsons landed a relic, they'd bring it out on the veranda or in to dinner and gloat over it loud and pointed, while the Smalls would pipe all hands to unload sarcasm. And the same vicy vercy when 'twas t'other way about. 'Twas interesting and instructive to listen to and amused the populace on rainy days, so Peter T. said.
Adoniram Rogers had been mighty scurce 'round the Old Home sense the davenport deal. But one morning he showed up unexpected. A boarder had dug up an antique somewheres in the shape of a derelict plate, and was displaying it proud on the piazza. The Thompsons was there and the Smalls and a whole lot more. All of a sudden Rogers walks up the steps and reaches over and makes fast to the plate.
“Look out!” hollers the prize-winner, frantic. “You'll drop it!”
Adoniram grunted. “Huh!” says he. “'Tain't nothing but a blue dish. I've got a whole closet full of them.”
“WHAT?” yells everybody. And then: “Will you sell 'em?”
“Sell 'em?” says Rogers, looking round surprised. “Why, I never see nothing I wouldn't sell if I got money enough for it.”
Then for the next few minutes there was what old Parson Danvers used to call a study in human nature. All hands started for that poor, helpless plate owner as if they was going to swoop down on him like a passel of gulls on a dead horse-mack'rel. Then they come to themselves and stopped and looked at each other, kind of shamefaced but suspicious. The Duchess and her crowd glared at the Dowager tribe and got the glares back with compound interest. Everybody wanted to get Adoniram one side and talk with him, and everybody else was determined they shouldn't. Wherever he moved the “Antiquers” moved with him. Milo watched from the side lines. Rogers got scared.
“Look here,” says he, staring sort of wild-like at the boarders. “What ails you folks? Are you crazy?”
Well, he might have made a good deal worse guess than that. I don't know how 'twould have ended if Peter T. Brown, cool and sassy as ever, hadn't come on deck just then and took command.
“See here, Rogers,” he says, “let's understand this thing. Have you got a set of dishes like that?”