“Do you buy articles outright, Mr. Kippen, as well as lend money on them?” he asked abruptly as he entered.
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“And at a fair price?”
“Certainly. May I ask what——”
But he was an impetuous man, and so full of his own mission, that he did not wait for me to conclude my inquiry.
“my apprentice.”
“Then what will you give me for this article, money down?” he asked, producing from his pocket, to my complete astonishment, the identical little carriage clock, all dials and complications and internal irregularities, which I had hidden in my piano before going down to Brisket’s farm—the clock that had been stolen from my Streatham villa. The same feeling came over me which I had had in that residence on the night of my return. I was swimmy for a moment, and saw stars, and then thought that a thick fog had broken out in Bermondsey. I recovered myself by a mighty effort of will. Here was to be a battle of the wits. Here was one item of my lost property within a hand’s grasp of me. I couldn’t keep that hand from trembling as I took the clock from him.
“Don’t shake it up like a bottle of medicine,” said the old gentleman, irritably; “it’s a delicate piece of workmanship, and won’t stand bobbing up and down like that; it upsets the mechanism, and it isn’t easily set right.”
“Is it in working order, then?” I inquired, with suppressed amazement.