“They aren’t so bad,” he admitted. “That large Bristol jar hasn’t any duplicate to my knowledge. Those eight snuff-jars on the third shelf—they’re Dollin’s ware; he used to work for Wimble in Seventeen-Forty—are absolutely unique. Is there any one in the trade now could tell you what ‘Romano’s Hollande’ was? Or ‘Scholten’s’? Here’s a snuff-mull of George the First’s time, and here’s a Louis Quinze—what am I talking of? Treize, Treize, of course—grater for making bran-snuff. They were regular tools of the shop in my grandfather’s day. And who on earth to leave ’em to outside of the British Museum now, I can’t think!”
His pipes—I would this were a tale for virtuosi—his amazing collection of pipes was kept in the parlour, and this gave me the privilege of making his wife’s acquaintance. One morning, as I was looking covetously at a jacaranda-wood “cigarro”—not cigar—cabinet with silver lock-plates and drawer-knobs of Spanish work, a wounded Canadian came into the shop and disturbed our happy little committee.
“Say,” he began loudly, “are you the right place?”
“Who sent you?” Mr. Burges demanded.
“A man from Messines. But that ain’t the point! I’ve got no certificates, nor papers—nothin’, you understand. I left my Lodge owin’ ’em seventeen dollars back-dues. But this man at Messines told me it wouldn’t make any odds with you.”
“It doesn’t,” said Mr. Burges. “We meet to-night at 7 P. M.”
The man’s face fell a yard. “Hell!” said he. “But I’m in hospital—I can’t get leaf.”
“And Tuesdays and Fridays at 3 P. M.,” Mr. Burges added promptly. “You’ll have to be proved, of course.”
“Guess I can get by that all right,” was the cheery reply. “Toosday, then.” He limped off, beaming.
“Who might that be?” I asked.