“What should you say an original Fierienti would bring?” I asked.
“Your old copy? Well, about two-fifty, as it’s you, Enid.”
“And a genuine Cellini Mercury?” I added.
“A Cellini? Oh, my dear girl, that is nonsense! No doubt, though, yours is a nice little imitation that ought to bring you as high as fifty dollars.”
I thanked him, and rang off.
“Martha,” I said, breathlessly, “something tells me that we are on the brink of a fortune.”
Martha shook her head. “You always have been, Miss Enid,” she said. But I went to bed with a sense of elation and fearlessness, prompted by the memory of a voice.
At seven the next morning I had Prince over the wire.
“Are you willing to catch the eight-thirty express, and to stop first and relieve me of a check for forty thousand dollars?” I asked. “Stop, you will hurt the receiver!”
After all, an ideal supplanted is hardly overthrown. I confess, however, to a day of apprehension until the rural free delivery handed me a letter. It was consistently terse: