"Thanks, that'll be all to-day," I goes on, "and—and I'll be waitin' downstairs, Marjorie."
She don't stop me; so I pushes through the mob at the tea table, collects my coat and lid, and slips down to the first floor, where I wanders into the drawin' room. No arty decorations here. Instead of pictures and plaster casts, the walls are hung with all kinds of mounted heads and horns, and the floor is covered with odd-lookin' skin rugs,—tigers, lions, and such.
I'd been waitin' there sometime, inspectin' the still life menagerie, when all of a sudden in from the hall rolls one of these invalid wheeled chairs with a funny little old bald-headed gent manipulatin' levers. What hair he has left is real white, and most of his face is covered with a thin growth of close-cropped white whiskers; but under the frosty shrubb'ry, as well as over all the bare space, he's colored up as bright as a bottle of maraschino cherries. It's the sort of sunburn a sandy complexion gets on; but not in a month or a year. You know? One of these blond Eskimo tints, that seems to go clear through the skin. How he could get it in a wheel chair, though, I couldn't figure out. Anyway, there wasn't time. Quick as he sees me he throws in his reverse gear and comes to a stop between the portières.
"Well, young man," he raps out sharp and snappy, "who the particular blazes are you?"
But, say, I've met too many peevish old parties to let a little jab like that tie up my tongue.
"Me?" says I, settin' back easy in the armchair. "Oh, I'm a buyer representin' a private collector."
"Buyer of what?" says he.
"Art," says I. "Just picked up a small lot,—that one with the Albany night boat in it, you know."
He stares like he thought I was batty, and then rolls his chair over closer. "Do I understand," says he, "that you have been buying a picture—here?"
"Sure," says I. "Say, ain't you on yet, and you right in the house? Well, you ought to get next."