"Humph!" says I. "I did find the lost tribes, a couple of members of 'em, anyway."
"What do you mean by that?" says he.
"Come somewheres where 'tain't so public and I'll tell you."
So we went back into the back room and I told him my yarn. He listened, with his mouth open, gettin' madder and madder all the time.
"Now," says I, endin' up, "the way I look at it is this. I've been thinkin' it out on the cars and I cal'late we'll have to do this way. We ain't crooks—that is, we didn't mean to be—and now we know all our 'antiques' are frauds and our 'Injun curios' made up to Boston, we must either shut up the 'Exchange' or go back to home products. We'll have to keep mum about those we have sold, because most of 'em have been carted out of town and we don't know where to locate the buyers. But, for my part, bein' average honest and meanin' to be square, I feel mighty bad. What do you say?"
He said enough. He felt as bad as I did about stickin' our customers, but what seemed to cut him the most was that somebody had got ahead of him in business.
"Think of it!" says he. "Skipper, we're gold-bricked! Cheated! Faked! Done! Think of it! If I could only get my hands on that—"
"Hold on a minute," says I. "Better think the whole of it while you're about it. We set out to drive those peddlers out of what was their trade. If they was smart enough to turn the tables and make a good profit out of sellin' us the stuff, I don't know as I blame 'em much. It was just tit for tat—or so it seems to me now that I've cooled off."
"Maybe so," says he; "but it hurts my pride just the same. James Henry Jacobs, doctor of sick businesses, beat by a couple of peddlers from Armenia!"
"Hold on again," I says. "I ain't told you their real name yet."