Dixon and Teague exchanged glances which as much as said, “here’s another customer for the pawnbroker.”
“Is Miss Rumble in?” said the newcomer in a hesitating manner, as he turned toward the old pawnbroker.
“You wouldn’t have her out on such a night, would you, Mr. Maxwell?” said Rumble, laughing. “She is in the sitting-room,” he added, pointing to the rear; “go right in.”
But Maxwell did not go right in. He knocked lightly at the door, which in a moment was opened by a young woman, whose girlish face and willowy figure presented a vision of loveliness to those in the outer room.
As Maxwell disappeared in the sitting-room, Dixon and his friend again exchanged glances which showed that they had changed their opinion in regard to the newcomer’s relations with the pawnbroker.
“Well,” asked Teague, “have the profits in this business met your expectations?”
“I have not been in it long enough to tell, for I have not had an auction,” replied Rumble. “In one respect, however, I have been disappointed. Very few articles on which I have loaned money have been redeemed. I don’t understand it.”
“Perhaps you are too liberal with your customers,” said Dixon.
“You would not have me be mean with them, would you?” answered Rumble. “Why, you know they must be in very straitened circumstances to come to me. If I took advantage of people’s poverty, I would expect that after their death all the old women who have pawned their shawls with me would send their ghosts back to haunt me.”