"We offered no guarantees with it," interrupted Waudle thickly. "Besides, his wife advised him to buy the collection. I am an old and valued friend of Mrs. Clydesdale. She would never dream of demanding a guarantee from me! Ask her if——"
"What is a guarantee?" inquired Jacqueline. "I'm quite certain that you don't know, Mr. Waudle. And did you and Mr. Munger regard your statement concerning the Chinese prince as poetic license? Or as diverting fiction? Or what? You were not writing romance, you know. You were engaged in business. So I must ask you again who is this prince?"
"There was a prince," retorted Waudle sullenly. "Can you prove there wasn't?"
"There are several princes in China. And now I am obliged to ask you to state distinctly exactly how many of these porcelains, jades and crystals which you sold to Mr. Clydesdale were actually purchased by you from this particular Chinese prince?"
"Most of them," said Waudle, defiantly. "Prove the contrary if you can!"
"Not all of them, then—as you assured Mr. Clydesdale?"
"I didn't say all."
"I am afraid you did, Mr. Waudle. I am afraid you even wrote it—over your own signature."
"Very well," said Waudle, with a large and careless sweep of his hand, "if any doubt remains in Mr. Clydesdale's mind, I am fully prepared to take back whatever specimens may not actually have come from the prince——"