Peggy sneezed again. “Gesundheit!” he repeated, and Peggy giggled.
“Think I’m a funny old codger, don’t you?” he said, his eyes twinkling. “And you’re right—I am—I am! Can’t get to be as old as I am and not be funny somehow! Now look—” He started removing a pile of odds and ends that were burying a piece of furniture covered with a dusty red shawl. “Take this and put it somewhere.” He handed Peggy a plaster cast of a nymph blowing a conch shell. Peggy looked around and placed it on a table already filled with other figurines. “And this—and this—” He gave her pictures, frames, little boxes, lamps. Peggy was hard pressed to find a place for them, but somehow she managed. Finally they reached bottom and Mr. Bladen pulled off the shawl. After the cloud of dust had subsided, among more sneezes and Gesundheits, Peggy looked at the “buried treasure” and gasped. It was a perfect Victorian chaise longue with a curving, dark mahogany frame, beautifully upholstered in red and gold striped satin.
“It’s perfect!” Peggy cried excitedly. “Oh, Mr. Bladen, it’s simply perfect! We couldn’t find anything better if we looked for a million years! Oh, may we use it, really?” She clasped her hands eagerly.
“Of course!” Mr. Bladen laughed, his thin, sensitive fingers patting the edge of the sofa. “I know it’s perfect. Just like the one they used in New York—noticed it myself when I saw the play. Been waiting, really, to find a use for it. Nobody would ever discover it under all this stuff!”
Peggy looked around, wondering how many other lovely pieces were hidden under the incredible litter.
“Yep,” Mr. Bladen said, “I have a lot of nice things here, but can’t ever find the time to straighten things up so they can be seen. Too old, I guess—and then there’s my work.”
Peggy’s surprise was evident. His work? Wasn’t this his work? Mr. Bladen answered her unspoken question with another conspiratorial wink.
“Write poetry, you see—only thing worth doing at my age. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Peggy was charmed. She hadn’t met anyone so delightful as Mr. Bladen for a long time. Wouldn’t her parents love to hear about this wonderful old man with his fantastic little shop and his poetry!
“Then of course you’d know about the theater and plays and everything,” she cried with sudden understanding. “No wonder!”