“That’s right. Well, how much do you want for it?”
“Four,” answered Jim.
“Well, I don’t say it isn’t worth it,” said the other dubiously, “but I guess three and a half would be the best I could get for it, if it sold at all.”
“Three and a half?” Jim considered. “All right, I’ll take three and a half.”
“I may get stuck on it,” said the clerk hesitantly, “but I’ll take a chance. Mind, I’m doing this, not the store, Mr. Todd. I wouldn’t have any right to risk the store’s money like this.”
Jim nodded. The point wasn’t important to him, and he was trying to think of some way in which to get the other fifty cents of the four dollars. The clerk took three dollars and a half from his pocket, handed the sum across the counter and the transaction was completed. Jim hurried out.
Had he passed that way half an hour later and looked in the left-hand window he would have seen his ball prominently displayed above a card on which was printed: “Shopworn—A Bargain at $4.50.”
Further along on the opposite side of the street was a tiny jewelry store. On the single narrow window was printed “The Diamond Palace—I. Kohn & Son.” Crossing the street, Jim removed his cuff-links. Whether they were solid gold or merely plated had never interested him before, but he hoped now that they were solid. They were, and after Mr. Kohn, Junior, a personable youth with extremely red cheeks, a diminutive black mustache and brilliantly shining hair smoothed back from his forehead, had carefully satisfied himself on that point he asked severely: “You want to sell them?”
Jim said that he did. Young Mr. Kohn shrugged, laid them back on a rusty square of purple velvet and pushed the square toward the customer. “We don’t buy second-hand jewelry,” he said. Jim picked up the links. “If you want to sell those for old gold, we’ll pay you what they’re worth.”