"He's an authority," says I, "and what he says along that line I don't dispute."
"Then you have bought it?" says she. "How exasperating! I was going to get Mr. Ogden to let me have The Toreador this week."
"The whole of it?" says I.
"Why, of course," says she.
"Gee!" thinks I. "It can't be an apartment house, then. Maybe it's an oil paintin', or a parlor car."
"But there!" she goes on. "I suppose you only bought it as a speculation. Now what is your price for next week?"
Say, for the love of Pete, I couldn't tell what it was gave me a grouch. Maybe it was only the off-hand way she threw it out, or the snippy chin-toss that goes with it. But I felt like I'd been stroked with a piece of sand paper.
"It's too bad," says I, "but you've made a wrong guess. I'm usin' The Toreador next week myself."
"You!" says she, and through the gauze curtain I could see her hump her eyebrows.
That finished the job. Even if The Toreador turned out to be a new opera house or a tourin' balloon, I was goin' to keep it busy for the next seven days.