“Well, let’s get the whacking over with,” suggested Andy. “I had all I wanted at Yale Field this afternoon.”
They came to a low, dingy building, at the side of which ran a black alley.
“In here—mind your steps!” warned Ikey.
They stumbled on, and then came to a halt behind the college salesman. He shot out a gleam of radiance from a pocket electric flashlight and opened a door.
“Hurry up!” he whispered, and as the others slipped in he closed and locked the portal. “Are the shades down, Hashmi?” he asked.
“Of a surely, yes.”
“Then show the fellows what your ancestors sent you.”
There was the removal of boards from a big packing case that stood in the middle of a bare room. There was the rustle of straw, and then, in the gleam of the little electric flash the boys saw a confused jumble of Japanese vases and other articles in porcelain, packed in the box.
“There, how’s that?” demanded Ikey, triumphantly, as he picked one up. “Wouldn’t that look swell on your mantel, Dunk?”
“It might do to hold my tobacco.”