"And is that what you did with it?"
"There's where it is now."
Richard was very near being downright angry with his old servant. "Go at once and bring the painting back!" he commanded, as sternly as he could.
But old Paul was not one to be easily disconcerted. Laying his master's stockings within their owner's reach, he replied, with unruffled composure: "Solomon will not give it back to me."
"Not if I demand it?"
"He sends his compliments to Captain Baradlay, and begs him to have the goodness to go and speak with him in person about the picture," returned the old hussar, handing Richard his trousers.
The young officer fairly lost his temper. "Paul, you are a donkey!" he exclaimed.
Quickly, and with no little vexation, the hussar officer completed his toilet and hastened to old Solomon's shop in Porcelain Street, before the Jew should hang the picture where it could be seen and, perhaps, recognised.
Solomon's establishment was a little basement shop, lying lower than the sidewalk and lighted only from the door, which was consequently always kept open. On both sides of the entrance old furniture was placed on exhibition, while within was gathered such a heterogeneous collection of all sorts of second-hand wares as fairly baffles description. But the most ancient and curious object in the whole shop was its owner, who sat in a big leather armchair, wrapped in a long caftan, fur shoes on his feet and a fur cap tilted over his eyes. There he was wont to sit all day long, rising only to wait on a customer. The leather covering of his chair-cushion was worn through with long service and had been replaced by a sheet of blotting-paper.
Solomon was in the habit of opening his shop early and taking his seat in the doorway; for no one could tell when good luck might bring him a customer. It was hardly eight o'clock when Richard strode down the narrow street and paused at the old Jew's door.