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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 50596
   :PG.Title: Quinneys'
   :PG.Released: 2015-12-02
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Horace Annesley Vachell
   :DC.Title: Quinneys'
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1914
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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QUINNEYS'
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      QUINNEYS'

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      HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL

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      JOHN MURRAY
      1917

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      FIRST EDITION . . . May 1914
      Reprinted . . . . . May 1914
      Reprinted . . . . . November 1914
      Reprinted . . . . . April 1915
      Reprinted . . . . . June 1915
      Reprinted 1/- net . . . July 1915
      Reprinted . . . . . July 1915
      Reprinted . . . . . August 1915
      Reprinted . . . . . August 1915
      Reprinted . . . . . September 1915
      Reprinted . . . . . November 1915
      Reprinted . . . . . January 1916
      Reprinted . . . . . September 1916
      Reprinted . . . . . March 1917

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      TO
      CYRIL MAUDE

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   CONTENTS

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   BOOK I

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   CHAPTER

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\I. `THE SIGN`_
\II. `THE DREAM COTTAGE`_
\III. `THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE`_
\IV. `THE INSTALLATION`_
\V. `SUSAN PREPARES`_
\VI. `THE VISITOR ARRIVES`_
\VII. `JOSEPHINA`_
\VIII. `LIGHT OUT OF THE DARKNESS`_
\IX. `SALVAGE`_

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   BOOK II

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\X. `BLUDGEONINGS`_
\XI. `MORE BLUDGEONINGS`_
\XII. `POSY`_
\XIII. `RUCTIONS`_
\XIV. `JAMES MIGGOTT`_
\XV. `AT WEYMOUTH`_
\XVI. `A BUSINESS PROPOSITION`_
\XVII. `INTRODUCES CYRUS P. HUNSAKER`_
\XVIII. `EXPLOSIONS`_
\XIX. `THINGS AND PERSONS`_
\XX. `BLACKMAIL`_
\XXI. `MABEL DREDGE`_
\XXII. `A TEST`_
\XXIII. `THE RESULT`_

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.. _`THE SIGN`:

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   QUINNEYS'

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   BOOK I

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   CHAPTER I

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   THE SIGN

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   \I

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"Good-evening, Mr. Quinney!"

"Good-evening!" Quinney replied, as he passed
a stout red-faced fellow-townsman.

With his back to the man, Quinney smiled.  He
could remember the day, not so long ago, when
Pinker, the grocer, called him "My lad."  Then his
whimsical face grew solemn, as he remembered that
a smile might be misinterpreted by others whose eyes
were fixed upon him with sympathy and interest.
He walked more slowly, as befitted a chief mourner
returning from his father's funeral, but he was
queerly sensible of a desire to run and shout and
laugh.  He wanted to run from a drab past into a
rosy future; he wanted to shout aloud that he was
free—free!  He wanted to laugh, because it seemed
so utterly absurd to pull a long face because a tyrant
was dead and buried.  The fact that the old man was
buried made a vast difference.

Suddenly he was confronted by a burly foot-passenger,
who held out a huge hand and spoke in a
deep, muffled voice.

"So, Old Joe is dead, and Young Joe reigns in his
stead?"

"Right you are," replied Quinney.

Despite his efforts, a note of triumph escaped him.

"Left you everything?" continued the burly man.
Quinney nodded, and after a pause the other
continued huskily: "Old Joe had something snug to
leave—hey?"

"Right again," replied Young Joe.

"More'n you thought for, I'll be bound?"

"Maybe."

"Well, my boy, hold on to it—as he did.  It's a
damned sight easier to make money than to keep it."

"I made some of it," said Quinney.

"Not much."

Quinney shrugged his shoulders and passed on,
slightly exasperated because a butcher had stopped
him in Mel Street, Melchester, with the obvious
intention of pumping details out of him.  The butcher
walked on, chuckling to himself.

"Young Joe," he reflected, "is a-goin' to be like
Old Joe.  Rare old skinflint he was, to be sure!"

Quinney, meantime, had reached the dingy shop
known to all Melchester as "Quinney's."  The
shutters were up—stout oak boards sadly in need of
a coat of paint.  Quinney opened a side door, and
entered his own house—his—his!  He could think of
nothing else.  Quinney's, and all it contained,
belonged to him.  Immediately after the funeral, when
the house was full of people, the young man was
dazed.  And when the will was opened, and he
learned that Old Joe had saved nearly ten thousand
pounds, he felt positively giddy, replying vaguely to
discreet whispers of congratulation with jerky
sentences such as "By Gum, this is a surprise!" or,
with nervous twitchings of the mouth and eyes,
"Rum go, isn't it, that I should be rich?"

Later, Young Joe had gone for a walk alone,
seeking the high downs above the ancient town.  The
keen air blew the fog out of his brain, and presently
he exclaimed aloud:

"Yes; I am Quinney's."

After a pause he burst out again, speaking with
such vehemence that a fat sheep who was staring at
him ran away.

"Gosh!  I'm jolly glad that I gave him a tip-top
funeral.  He'd have pinched something awful over
mine."

After this explosion—silence, broken intermittently
by whistling.

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   \II

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Upon entering the house, Quinney went into the
shop, and disdainfully surveyed the stock-in-trade.
Everything lay higgledy-piggledy.  The big window
was full of faked brass-work which seemed to gleam
derisively at a dirty card upon which was inscribed
the legend, "Genuine Antiques."  Among the
brass-work were bits of pottery and some framed
mezzo-tints.  Inside the shop, upon an unswept floor, old
furniture was piled ceiling high.  Some of it was really
good, for mahogany was just then coming into
fashion again, but in such matters Old Joe had
always been behind his times.  He preferred oak, the
more solid the better, buying everything at country
sales that happened to go cheap; assorted lots
allured him irresistibly.  He was incapable of
arranging his wares, laughing scornfully at his son's
suggestions.  In the same spirit he refused to remove dust
and dirt, being of the opinion that they lent a tone to
antiques which were not quite genuine.  He had
never bought really good stuff to sell to customers
outside the trade.

When, as frequently happened, he came across a
valuable piece of furniture or a bit of fine china, he
would communicate at once with a dealer, and in
particular with a certain Thomas Tomlin, who invariably
paid ten per cent advance on the bargain, which
might be regarded as a handsome profit.  To the
visitors, especially Americans, who dropped in to
Quinney's on their way to and from the Cathedral,
Old Joe would sell at a huge profit what he
contemptuously stigmatized as rubbish.  A few of his
regular customers were well aware that Old Joe knew
nothing of the real value of some of his wares.  He
bought engravings and prints in colour, and these he
sold at a price about double of what he had paid,
chuckling as he did so.

Porcelain he understood, but not pottery; and
even in porcelain he refused obstinately to pay a high
price, unless he was quite sure of his turnover.
Young Joe had always despised these primitive
methods, and nothing pleased him so much as when
he was able to rub well into his sire the mortifying
fact that ignorance and funk had prevented him from
securing a prize.

As the young man gazed derisively at his possessions,
the roustabout boy told him that Mr. Tomlin
had called, promising to return after the funeral;
and half an hour later the dealer arrived, to find
Young Joe staring devoutly at two figures of Bow
and a plate of Early Worcester.  Tomlin greeted the
young man with a certain deference never exhibited
before.

"Sorry to disturb you, Joe, on such a sad occasion."

"'Tain't sad!" snapped joe.  "You know as well
as I do that the old man gave me a hell of a time.
Now he's gone, and that's all there is about it."

"I came about them," Tomlin indicated the china.
"Last thing your pore father wrote to me about."

"Nice bits, eh?"

Tomlin examined them.  As he did so, a keen
observer might have noticed that Young Joe's eyes
were sparkling with what might have been
excitement or resentment, but not gratification.

"How much?" said Tomlin.

"They're not for sale."

"What?"

"I should say that I'm keepin' 'em for a party I
know."

"Anything else to show me?" grunted Tomlin,
caressing the Bow glaze with a dirty but loving
finger.  "Your father mentioned a mirror-black jar,
K'ang He period."

"Keepin' that too," replied Quinney quietly.

"Sold it?"

"Not yet."

Quinney smiled mysteriously.

"Then what's up?  Ain't my money as good as
the next man's?"

"If you want a plain answer, Mr. Tomlin, it ain't—to me."

"Ho!  What d'ye mean?"

"Just that.  It don't pay to deal with the trade.
If I pick up a good thing, you get the credit; you
claim all the credit.  Our name is never mentioned,
not a line.  In this town we have the reputation of
selling rubbish.  I'm going to change all that."

"Are you?"  Tomlin was visibly impressed and
distressed.  "Well, look ye here, take my advice, and
walk in the old man's footsteps.  He done well."

"I shall do better."

Tomlin stared at the speaker, who spoke with an
odd air of conviction.  Quinney continued in the
same quiet drawl, "If you want to buy any of this,"
he waved a contemptuous hand, "it's yours—cheap!"

"Rubbish!"

"Just so."

Tomlin sat down and wiped his forehead.  He was
feeling warm, and the sight of young Quinney so
exasperatingly cool and smug in his black clothes
made him warmer.

"Ho!  That's the game, is it?"  As Quinney
nodded, he continued: "Me and you can do
business together."

"Together?"

"I say—together.  How would a trip abroad suit you?"

Quinney lifted his eyebrows; the first indication
of interest in his visitor.

"A trip—abroad?"

"To France.  I've heard of a man in Brittany—a
wonder.  His line is old oak; mostly copies of famous
pieces.  He's the greatest faker in the world, and
an artist.  No blunders!  Would you like to go into
a deal with me?  You know old oak when you see it?"

"I think so."

"You go over there and buy five hundred pounds'
worth and put it into this shop, after you've cleared
out the rubbish.  I'll go halves.  It's a dead cert,
and this is the right place for the stuff.  My pitch
wouldn't do, and I haven't the room.  I'll send you
customers."

"It's a go," said Quinney.

"You mean to make things hum?  And I can help
you.  Never gave you credit for being so sharp."

Details were then discussed, not worth recording;
but during this memorable interview, which led to so
much, Quinney was sensible of an ever-increasing
exaltation and powers of speech which amazed him
as much as the older man.  He announced curtly his
intention of getting rid of the rubbish, repainting and
redecorating the premises, and dealing for the future
in the best, whether fakes or genuine antiques.

"Never could persuade the old man that the
'Genuine Antiques' card was a dead give-away."

Fired with enthusiasm, he seized the card and tore
it up there and then, while Tomlin applauded
generously.

"You're yer father without any moss on you," he
remarked, as he took his leave, promising to return
on the morrow.  Upon the threshold he asked,
"Doin' anything particular this evening?"

"Yes," said Quinney.

Tomlin went out, but returned immediately.

"You ought to have a sign."

"I mean to."

"Thought of that already?"

"Thousands and thousands o' times.  It'll be a
hangin' sign of wrought-iron; the best; painted
black, with 'Quinney's' in gold.  It'll cost twenty
pounds."

"That's going it."

"I mean to go it."



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   \III

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Quinney supped simply at seven, and then he
walked across the Cathedral Close, down a small
street, known as Laburnum Row, and knocked at the
door of a genteel, semi-detached cottage.  The very
respectable woman who opened the door drew down
the corners of a pleasant mouth when she beheld the
visitor.  A note of melancholy informed her voice as
she greeted him, but her sharp, brown eyes sparkled
joyously as she said:

"Never expected to see you this evening, Mr. Quinney."

"I'm tired of doing the things that are expected,"
was the surprising reply.  Then, with a flush, he
blurted out, "Susan in?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Biddlecombe, leading the way
into the parlour.  "The child's upstairs."

Mother and daughter had seen Quinney approaching,
whereupon Mrs. Biddlecombe had remarked,
"It's all right.  You smooth your hair, dear, and
slip on your blue gown."

Meanwhile, Quinney took the most comfortable
chair, and stared with appraising eye at the furniture.
Above the mantelpiece hung the portrait in
water-colour of a handsome woman, obviously a lady, as the
word was interpreted by the grandmothers of the
present generation.  This was Mrs. Biddlecombe's
mother, the wife of a doctor, who had been bear-leader
to a sprig of nobility, accomplishing with him
the Grand Tour.  In her turn, Mrs. Biddlecombe had
married a medical gentleman (her word), who,
unhappily, was called from the exercise of his profession
in a promising suburb to a place invariably designated
by Mrs. Biddlecombe as his last home.  Later,
the widow, left in very humble circumstances, had
married beneath her rightful station in life a certain
George Biddlecombe, a small builder and contractor,
of Melchester, who, failing in business when Susan
was some five years old, had died of disgust.  Since
this second bereavement, Mrs. Biddlecombe supported
herself and her daughter by taking in lodgers,
cleaning lace and fancy work.  She was a stout,
energetic creature, not much the worse for the wear
and tear of a never-ending struggle to raise herself to
the position which she had adorned before her second
disastrous marriage.

"The funeral was well attended," she remarked.

"The old man was hardly what one might call
popular," replied Quinney.

"He'll be missed in Melchester."

"Missed, but not regretted," the son replied
grimly.

"Ah!" murmured Mrs. Biddlecombe, thinking of
the builder and contractor.

Quinney pulled himself together, sitting upright in
the arm-chair and speaking firmly.

"I ain't here to talk about him.  Less said on that
subject the better.  I'm my own master now, ma'am,
able to please myself.  Lord!  How he hated my
coming here!"

"I know, I know!"

"Never appreciated Susan, neither.  Dessay you
think I ought to be at home, mourning.  Well, he
knocked all that out o' me long ago.  Plain talk is
best.  As a matter of business, with an eye on some
of our customers in this stoopid old town, I shall do
what is expected in the way of a tombstone, and I
shall try not to sing and dance in High Street, but
between you and me it's a riddance."

Mrs. Biddlecombe smiled uneasily, but she said
honestly:

"I've been through it, Mr. Quinney."

"You've had the doose of a time, ma'am—and a
born lady, too."

Mrs. Biddlecombe put her handkerchief to her
eyes, and dabbed them gently.  She did not quite
understand her visitor, who was presenting himself
in a new and startling light, but she was comfortably
aware that his own inclination and nothing else had
brought him to Laburnum Row.  For a moment her
mind was a welter of confused excitements and
speculations.  Would her Susie rise to this momentous
occasion?  Would she clasp opportunity to her
pretty bosom?  And if so, what might not be done
with such clay as Quinney, plastic to the hand of an
experienced potter.  Nevertheless, the young man's
too brutal declaration of independence shocked
cherished conventions.  She beheld him shrinkingly
as an iconoclast, a shatterer of the sacred Fifth
Commandment.

"Are you thinking of leaving Melchester?" she
asked.

"Not yet, although I am goin' abroad."

"Abroad?"

"To France, ma'am.";

Mrs. Biddlecombe frowned.  France was a godless
country, where tempestuous petticoats abounded.
She hoped that Susan was arraying herself in the blue
gown.  Blue suited the child's milk and roses
complexion.  In blue she might provoke comparison with
the audacious hussies across the Channel.  She was
clever enough to murmur sympathetically, "You
need a holiday, to be sure."

At this Quinney laughed.

"It's business.  I'm after old oak.  Want to work
up a connection—hey?"

"Do you speak French?"

"Me?  Do I speak Chocktaw?  Do I speak English
properly?  Do I, now?  O' course you parleyvoo
like a native?"

"Not quite, Mr. Quinney."

"And Susie—you learned her French, and the
pi-anner?"

"I did my best."

"Angels can do no more," said Quinney
admiringly.  "Upset yer neighbours, too."

He smiled maliciously, having suffered long and
patiently at the hands of neighbours.  Mrs. Biddlecombe
feigned ignorance of his meaning, when Quinney
laughed again, almost indecorously.

"Lord bless you, I know all about that.  You
pinched to get that piano," he indicated an ancient
instrument, "because it was the only one in the row.
And French!  By Gum!  Is there a girl except Susie
who parleyvoos in this part of the town?  Not one!
The whole row gnashes its teeth over that."

His pride in Susan's accomplishments touched the
mother's heart.  Her voice rang out clearly and
triumphantly:

"It's perfectly true."

At this moment Susan Biddlecombe entered the
parlour, and Quinney sprang to his feet to greet her.
She was just eighteen, and very pretty and refined,
with small hands and feet, and delicately-cut features.
The mother boasted that she looked a gentlewoman,
and for the purposes of this narrative, it is far more
important to add that she was innately gentle and
womanly, with no tainting tincture of the ogling,
smirking, provincial coquette.

Quinney kissed her!

Mrs. Biddlecombe blushed scarlet.  Susan smiled,
hesitated, and then kissed Quinney.

Mrs. Biddlecombe ejaculated "Gracious!"

"Give us yer blessin'," said Quinney, quite riotously.
Then, masterfully, he kissed the girl again,
turning to confront the astonished mother.

"Settled between us three months ago," he
explained fluently.  "We dassen't tell a soul, not even
you, because of the old man.  He was capable of
leavin' every bob to an orsepital for dogs.  He said
to me once, 'Don't let me hear anything of goings on
between you and that there Biddlecombe girl!'  By
Gum, I obeyed him!  He never did hear anything.
Me and Susie took jolly good care o' that.  I only hope
as he knows now."

At this Susan murmured:

"Joe, dear, please don't!"

Then mother and daughter solemnly embraced.

"I hated not to tell you," whispered Susan, "but
Joe would have his way."

"The old 'un told me I might look high with my
prospects, but he never did know quality.  Quantity
was what he'd go for.  Lord!  How he fairly
wallowed in job lots!  Well, all that's over."

He began to walk up and down the small room,
telling the two women his plans for the future.  They
listened with shadows of perplexity in their brown
eyes, and presently Mrs. Biddlecombe carefully
cleaned and put on her spectacles, peering at her
future son-in-law with eyes just dimmed by happy
tears.

Presently he spoke of the sign, making a rough
drawing.  Mrs. Biddlecombe laughed slily as she
pointed out the apostrophe in "Quinney's."

"Isn't Susie going to help?" she asked.  "Why
not 'Quinneys'?"

"By Gum, you're right.  Of course she's going to
help.  Make a rare saleswoman, too."

"I should love to help!" said Susan eagerly.
"You'd soon teach me, Joe."

"All the tricks in the trade, Susie, and perhaps one
or two of our own."

The girl opened wider her honest eyes.  "Must
there be tricks?" she asked, and a finer ear
than Quinney's might have detected a note of
anxiety.

"Bless your innocent heart—yes!  Dessay I shall
learn a bit from you.  Course o' Shakespeare now, to
improve one's powers o' speech."

He laughed so hilariously that Mrs. Biddlecombe
held up a restraining finger.

"We're semi-detached, you know."

"I'm rich enough not to care what Laburnum Row
thinks or says," he declared.  "What day will suit
you to get married, Susie?"

"Oh, Joe—this is sudden."

"Sudden?  I was tellin' your mother that I had
to go to France on biz, but I want you to come along,
too, to do the parleyvooin'.  Can you get ready in a
month?"

Mrs. Biddlecombe frowned, shaking her head.

"You must wait longer than that."

"Why?"

"It's customary."

"Blow that!  I want Susie, and while we're in
France the shop can be overhauled.  You'll keep an
eye on it—hey?"

"I wash my hands of any marriage entered upon
in undue haste."

Finally, he agreed to wait two months, not a
moment longer.

"But I shall order the sign to-morrow—'Quinneys''—with
letters cuddling up against each other.  It'll
be made in London, quite regardless.  Next Sunday
and you, Susie, will take a little walk in and
about Melchester.  I shan't ask you to pig it over
the shop."

"I shouldn't mind that a bit."

"But I should.  I'm marrying a lady, one of the
best, and I'll start the thing in style, just bang up."

"A semi-detached?"

"Lord, no!  Wouldn't hurt your mother's feelin's
for worlds, but a semi-detached ain't private enough
for me.  The neighbours might hear me yellin' when
Susie pulls my hair."

Mrs. Biddlecombe rose majestically.

"I'm going to open a bottle of my ginger cordial,"
she said solemnly.

As the door closed behind her, Quinney exclaimed,
"Now, Susie, you jump on my knee.  I want to tell
you that I'm the happiest man on earth."

He spoke in a tone of absolute conviction.





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.. _`THE DREAM COTTAGE`:

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   CHAPTER II

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   THE DREAM COTTAGE

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   \I

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Melchester, although urban in the strict sense of
the word, was sweetly fragrant of the country.  Mel
Street, except on Sundays, was always more or less
blocked with country wagons and carts loaded with
Melshire cheeses and butter and cream and eggs.
Melshire bacon is famous the world over.  There were
no factories; and admittedly the town depended
upon the surrounding country, which included
wind-swept downs, and pleasant valleys, and many woods
full of pheasants, and languid streams full of coarse
fish.  Essentially a country town which had fallen
asleep in the Middle Ages, and went on slumbering,
like a hale old man who has dined well.  The curates
and minor canons struggled against this somnolence.
Vice might be found in many of the back streets, vice
half-drunk, passive, Laodicean, hardly ever rampageous,
save on such rare occasions as when the military
were camping just outside the moss-grown walls.

The townfolk, generally, were content with themselves
and the conditions under which they strolled
from the cradle to the grave.  Susan Biddlecombe,
for instance, thanked God morning and evening because
her lines were cast in pleasant places.  Till she
met Quinney, her mind had dwelt placidly in the
immediate present.  He hurled it into the future with
a breathless phrase adumbrating incredible possibilities.
But that was later, after the death of his
father, who might have lived another twenty years.
Before that great piece of good fortune Joe indulged
in talk that was very small indeed; and the one
excitement incidental to her engagement was its
secrecy.  Being a pretty girl, and half a lady, she had
visualized marriage as a tremendous change, possibly
for the better, quite possibly for the worse.  But
during these dreams she beheld herself as herself,
never reckoning that her ideas and ideals might make
another woman of her under conditions and conventions
other than what she so thoroughly understood.

She was romantic; but who dares to define romance.
What does it mean to a girl like Susan Biddlecombe?
Adventure?  Yes.  She was thrilled to the core when
Quinney kissed her for the first time behind the
parlour door; and her heart beat delightfully fast
whenever she approached their trysting-place in a secluded
corner of the Close.  Romance inspired her with the
happy thought of corresponding with her lover in
cypher.  The engagement ring became a treasure
indeed, because she dared not wear it except at night.
From the first she had gallantly faced the fact that
her Joe did not look romantic, but there was a flavour
of the bold buccaneer about his speech, and a sparkle
in his eye quite captivating.  His firm, masterful grip
of a girl's waist was most satisfying, although it
provoked protest.  She had murmured, "Please—don't!"  And
to this he replied tempestuously, "Sue,
darling, you like it; you know you like it.  What's
the use of trying to flimflam me?"  He was not to be
silenced till she whispered blushing that she did like
it.  Awfully?  Yes—awfully.  The man pressed the
point, asking astounding questions.  What ought to
be the tale of kisses, for example?  Could a maid
stand five hundred of 'em?  Why not try the
experiment at the first opportunity?

In this primitive fashion he captured her.

On the following Sunday the lovers found a cottage
which seemed to be the real, right thing.  It was set
in a small garden, surrounded by a small holly hedge,
and flanked on the north-east by a row of tall elms.
Behind the cottage was a plot of ground, which
included a superb chestnut tree, with low branches, upon
which, as Susan observed, hammocks could be swung.

"Hammocks?" repeated Quinney.

"On Sunday," said Susan, "in the summer, we
can lie in hammocks and think of how hard we work
during the week.  It will be heavenly."

"By Gum!  You have ideas, Sue."

"Mother always said I was too romantic."

The cottage was roofed with big red tiles encrusted
with mosses and lichen; and about its walls in
summer-time clambered roses and clematis.

"I love it already," Miss Biddlecombe declared
with fervour.

"More than you love me?"

For answer she made a grimace.  Quinney, with a
broad grin upon his lips, encircled her waist with his
arm.  But a pin pierced his finger, which began to
bleed, whereupon the young woman seized the finger
and put her lips to it.

"I've drunk my Joe's blood," she said, with a
charming blush.

"Oh, you jolly cannibal!" exclaimed Quinney.

They kissed each other tenderly, and almost forgot
the cottage.  Presently Quinney said, "I believe
this'll do?" and she answered ecstatically, "It's
exactly right."

Quinney qualified this.

"There may be others better still; it's only the
best we've seen so far."

"I dare say you think there's a better girl than I
am somewhere or other?"

"No, I don't!"

"How awful it would be if I caught you looking
for her."

"No fear o' that!" he affirmed solemnly.

Next morning early they went together to the
agent, derisively scornful of the gossips, who, to do
them justice, refrained from unpleasant remarks.
Laburnum Row knew by this time that young Joe
Quinney had ten thousand pounds, and the
rosy-fingered fact that he had found a wife in a
semi-detached cottage was tremendously acclaimed.

The agent smiled discreetly when he saw them, and
may have wished, poor fellow, that he, too, was
young again and shamelessly in love.

"Bird-nestin', we are," said Quinney.

"Just so.  Did you like the nest you saw yesterday?"

The sly fellow glanced at the girl, who answered
eagerly, "It's too sweet for anything!"

Obviously, she wished to clinch the bargain on the
nail, but, much to her exasperation, the more
cautious male began to ask questions, listening
attentively to the answers, and displaying a shrewd
understanding.  Susan decided that her Joe was
wasting valuable time, because she wanted to
discuss wallpapers.  She sniffed when Quinney said,
"Is there anything else on your books prettier than
this cottage?"  She shuffled impatiently, when the
agent answered impassively, "Oh yes!"  While the
men had been talking she had decided that an ugly
pigsty must be pulled down, that the kitchen must be
refloored, and that the big water barrel should be
painted apple-green and white.

"Where is this other cottage?"

"On the Mel, five minutes' walk from your place.
It belongs to the widow of an artist, and it's a real
bargain.  You ought to see it."

"We will see it," said Quinney.

Susan shrugged her small shoulders.  All this talk
was lamentably foolish.  Men were great sillies.
While they were staring at cottage number two, some
enterprising stranger might snap up cottage number
one.  A nice sell that would be!

"Come on, Sue," said Quinney.

Miss Biddlecombe "came on" reluctantly holding
her tongue because she dared not speak her mind
before the agent, and very cross by reason of this
abstention.

"You ain't tired?" asked Quinney, reading her
face wrongly.  The tenderness in his voice brought
back a brace of dimples.

"Tired?  Not a bit, but I'm sure that our cottage
is the prettier."

"Please suspend judgment," said the agent
formally.  How could he divine that the pretty maid,
who smiled at him so sweetly, would have suspended
him from the nearest tree for being a bore and a
nuisance.  She smiled upon him with rage in her heart.

And, behold, the second cottage was infinitely
prettier than the first.  Susan gasped when she
beheld it, and she was quite furious with Quinney
when he said drawlingly, "This looks all right, but
what's wrong with it?  Why hasn't it been gobbled
up long ago?"

"There is something wrong with it—the price."

"I guessed as much."

The agent explained glibly, for he, too, had learned
of young Joe's great inheritance.

"It's not big enough for well-to-do folk; and it's
much too expensive for poor people.  It cost quite a
lot of money.  There's a boathouse, and fishing rights
and everything is in tip-top order.  So it's not
surprising that the price is tip-top also.  But it's a
genuine bargain."

"How much?"

The agent mentioned a sum which made Quinney
whistle.  Susan groaned.  She had quite forgotten
cottage number one.  It had grown common in her
brown eyes, which dwelt with rapture upon a tiny
lawn sloping to the sleepy Mel, upon the veranda
where in summer-time Joe and she could eat their
meals, upon the lilac and laburnum soon to bloom,
upon the placid stream so plainly loath to leave such
delightful banks.  No neighbours other than the
owners of big gardens would disturb their peace.
Over everything hung a veil of romance and beauty.
Furtively, she wiped two tears from her eyes.

"Let us go," she said quietly.

She turned, and the men followed her in silence.



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   \II

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Quinney went back to his shop without making
any reference to cottage number one.  Undoubtedly
number two was a bargain, but he remembered a
maxim often in his father's mouth, "At a great
pennyworth pause awhile; many are ruined by buying
bargains."  Moreover, the first cottage was to be
had at a modest rent.  Number two was not offered
on lease; the owner wanted spot cash for the
freehold.  Before the lovers parted, Susan whispered,
"I do wish we had not seen that cottage by the Mel.
It's made me hate the other."

Quinney nodded gloomily.  Susan continued
softly, "It's a dream cottage.  I shall think of it as
that, and pretend that it doesn't really exist.  I may
go there sometimes when I'm asleep."

"You must look a little dear when you're asleep!"

"Oh, Joe, you do say such odd things."

"We'll look at some other cottages."

"I shall be perfectly happy with you anywhere—except
in that first cottage."

"One of these fine days you'll live in a big house
in London."

"What?"

"I mean it.  You make a note of what I say.
This old town is well enough, but it ain't big enough
for me."

"Joe, you do surprise me."

"Bless you, dear heart!  I surprise myself.  I'm
a smallish man, as inches count, but I'm simply
bustin' with big ideas.  I surprised Tomlin, too."

"I don't like Mr. Tomlin."

"Now, why not?"

"He looks so sly."

"He's foxy, very.  Has to be.  A London dealer
must be sharper than his customers.  The big collectors,
the chaps that write thumpin' cheques are no
fools, and some of them are knaves.  I could tell you
stories——"

"Please don't, dear."

"Why not?"

"I don't want to listen to unpleasant stories now;
and besides, mother is expecting me.  It's washing
day."

"I hate the thought of my Sue at the wash tub!"

She considered this gravely, with her head a little
upon one side.  Then she answered soberly, "I like
doing things, and getting them done properly."

"By Gum, you seem to forget you're a lady born."

"I'm only half and half, Joe.  It will be a real
pride to me getting up your shirts."

"There'll be none o' that, my girl."

She laughed gaily, but her face was pensive as she
returned to Laburnum Row.



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   \III

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Next Sunday happened to be an exceptionally fine
day.  Quinney accompanied Susan and her mother to
the Cathedral, but after the service Mrs. Biddlecombe
returned to Laburnum Row, leaving the lovers in the
elm-encircled Close.  Quinney, whose eyes were
sparkling even more than usual, strolled across the
Mel, and presently he paused opposite the Dream
Cottage.  Susan pinched his arm.

"How horrid of you to bring me here," she whispered.
"I hate the sight of it now."

"But why?  Queer things girls are, to be sure."

"If it's queer not to stare at what one can't have,
I'm queer," said the young lady rather shortly.  "I
was never one to flatten my nose against the window
of a hat-shop when I'd no money to buy hats."

"You're a sensible little dear!  But I brought you
here because the place is sold.  I knew that would
cure you.  Now oughtn't we to have a squint at the
first?"

"It would make me squint to look at it now."

"It's nicer than a tent."

"A tent?"

"You said you would live happily in a tent with me."

"Men don't understand women."

"That's a horrid thought with our two lives to live
out together."

He looked so sorry because he couldn't understand
women that Susan kissed him, having satisfied herself
that nobody was in sight.  She said softly:

"Well, Joe, it is really my fault because I did
disguise my disappointment very cleverly, didn't I?"

Quinney chuckled.

"Disguise it?  Bless your simple heart!  I saw two
fat tears rolling down your cheeks.  I was the one
who disguised my disappointment."

Whereat Susan protested stoutly that she had
never seen any man look so disgusted as her Joe,
when the agent mentioned the price of the Dream
Cottage.  She concluded on a high note of assurance.

"Desperate diseases require desperate remedies.
Now that we're here, we'll go in, and I'll let it soak in
that the place is really and truly sold."  Quinney
nodded, and Miss Biddlecombe continued fluently,
"After I've seen it once more I shall never give it
another thought."

"Don't be too cocksure about that!"

"I tell you I shan't, and besides, the river is
certainly dangerous."

"Dangerous to us?"

She blushed delightfully, pressing his arm, but
saying nothing.  Quinney, divining her thoughts,
fell more in love with her than ever.  She went on
artlessly, "I expect the house is damp in winter."

"Dry as a bone.  I asked about that."

"When did you ask?"

"I suppose when we looked at it."

"I never heard you ask.  I'm feeling quite happy
about it now.  I wonder whether the people who have
bought it have moved in?"

He was able to assure her that they hadn't.  But she
asked immediately how he had come to know of the sale.

"The agent told me."

"When?"

"When I wrote to him."

"Why did you write to him?"

"To make inquiries about other cottages, of course."

They passed through a wicket-gate into a small
garden gay in summer with larkspurs, hollyhocks,
and what children call "red-hot pokers."  A path of
flagged stones wandered round the house.

"Cosy, ain't it?" he said.  And as he spoke she
noticed that his voice trembled.  She tried to
interpret the expression upon his shrewd whimsical face,
and failed.

"Are you so tremendously sorry that this lovely
place is sold?"

"I'm tremendously glad," he replied.

"I can't screw myself up to say that, Joe.  I
wonder who is coming to live here?"

"A childless couple."

"A childless couple!"  Her face softened.  "I'm
sorry they're childless.  I can see children running
about this garden."

"And tumbling into the river!"

"I was only joking about that.  But perhaps——"

"Exactly.  They may have a dozen yet."

She sighed as she surveyed the pleasance.  Nothing,
she decided, could ever be so exactly right again.
Then Quinney said abruptly

"We can't keep your poor mother waiting for
dinner."

"Bother dinner.  I want to have a long, last
lingering look."

"But you may come again, because you happen to
know the man who has bought it."

The note of triumph in his voice was illuminating.

"Joe!" she exclaimed.  "It's you!"

"Yes; it's me.  Now ain't I a regular old rag-bag
o' surprises?"



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   \IV

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The furnishing of the Dream Cottage occupied them
very agreeably during the two pleasant months that
elapsed before their marriage, but there were moments
when Susan became exasperatingly conscious of
immense differences between herself—as she was
beginning to know herself—and the man she loved.
Mrs. Biddlecombe and she, for instance, had nourished the
conviction that the home being the true sphere of
woman, it would be their privilege and pleasure to
arrange it according to the lights, farthing dips,
perhaps, vouchsafed to the middle class in Victorian
days.  But the Man of Many Surprises, as Susan
called him, dealt drastically with this conviction,
dispatching it swiftly to the limbo of unrealized
ambitions and broken hopes.  In those days, it may
be remembered, popular fancy strayed wantonly
amongst ebonized super-mantels, and cabinets with
gilded panels upon which exotic birds and flowers
were crudely painted.  Aspinall's Enamel entered
generously into most schemes of decoration.  Fireplaces
were filled with Japanese umbrellas.  Japanese
fans were arranged upon bilious-looking wall-papers,
and Japanese bric-à-brac, cheap bronzes, cheap
porcelain, everything cheap, became a raging pestilence.

Quinney's taste soared high above this rubbish so
dear to the hearts of Susan and her mother.  Afterwards
he marvelled at the sure instinct which had
guided him aright.  Where did it come from?  Why,
without either knowledge or experience, did he swoop
unerringly upon what was really beautiful and
enduring, and at that time more or less despised?

Mrs. Biddlecombe had bought a book entitled,
*How to Furnish the Home with One Hundred
Pounds*.  She read aloud certain passages to Quinney,
who listened patiently for half an hour, and then
snorted.

"You've taken cold," said the anxious Susan.

"That rot would make any man choke," said
Quinney.  "Makes me perfectly sick," he continued,
warming to his work, as he encountered the amazed
stare of the women, "makes me want to smash
things!  Silly rot, and written by a woman, I'll be
bound."

"It's written by a lady," observed Mrs. Biddlecombe,
"an authoress, too."

"It's written by a fool!" snapped Quinney.
"We've Solomon's word for it that there's nothing so
irksome as a female fool.  This particular brand o'
fool don't know, and never will know, the very first
principles o' furnishing, whether for rich or poor.
Buy good solid stuff.  Don't touch rubbish!  Rubbish
is beastly.  Rubbish is wicked.  I've had enough
of rubbish.  Me and Susan is going to start right.
And as for cost," he paused to deliver a slashing
blow, "I'm going to put one thousand pounds'
worth of stuff into my house!"

Mother and daughter gasped.  Quinney seemed to
have swollen to monstrous dimensions.  Was he
stark mad?  Tremblingly they waited for what
might follow.

"Perhaps more," he added flamboyantly, "and
everything is going to be good, because I shall choose
it.  It's become a sort of religion with me.  A fine
thing like that K'ang He jar of mine makes me feel
good.  I can kneel down before it."

Mrs. Biddlecombe observed majestically:

"Don't be blasphemous, Joseph!"

"Blasphemous?" he repeated derisively.  "It's
blasphemy to my notion to prefer ugliness to beauty.
Suppose I'd done as father wanted me to do, and got
engaged to that ugly laughin' hyena, Arabella Pinker,
because she had something in her stocking besides a
leg like a bed-post."

"Now you are indelicate, isn't he, Susan?"

"I chose Susan instead of Bella.  Blasphemous!
Now, tell me, what do you go to the Cathedral for?"

"To worship my Maker."

"Well, I'm going to be honest with you and Sue.
I go to the Cathedral to look at the roof, the finest bit
of stonework in the kingdom.  My thoughts just soar
up into that vaulting.  I feel like a bird o' Paradise.
Our Cathedral is God's House, and no mistake.  My
mind can't grapple with Him, but it gets to close
grips with that fan vaulting, which He must have
designed."

"Never heard you talk like this before," murmured
Susan.

In her heart, which was beating faster than usual,
Miss Biddlecombe was profoundly impressed, because
she had wit enough to perceive that her Joe was
absolutely sincere.  But she trembled at his audacity,
because she had been trained to say "Gawd" rather
than "God," believing devoutly that the lengthening
of the vowel indicated piety.

"I've had to bottle up things," said Quinney
grimly.  "Now I'm free to speak my mind, and you're
free too, my girl.  Hooray, for plain speech!  Lawsy,
how it hurts a poor devil to hold his tongue!"

Mrs. Biddlecombe retired from the parlour feeling
quite unable to deal faithfully with a young man who
must be, so she decided, slightly under the influence
of liquor.  Her ideas had been put to headlong flight,
but they returned like homing doves to the great and
joyous fact that her prospective son-in-law possessed
ten thousand pounds.  Enough to intoxicate
anybody—that!  Her own steady head swam at the luck
of things.  Later, when the first exuberance had
passed, Susan and she would have a word or two to
say.  For the moment there were ten thousand
reasons, all of them pure gold, in favour of discreet
silence.



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   \V

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To Susan alone, under a pledge of secrecy, Quinney
became alluringly expansive.  Once, in her flapper
days, she had seen Lord George Sanger's famous
three-ring circus, and had tried to take in and
assimilate three simultaneous shows.  Result—a headache!
Peering into Quinney's mind was quite as exciting as
the three-ring circus, and nearly as confusing.  He
could soar to the giddy pinnacles of Melchester
Cathedral, and thence, with a swallow's flight, wing
his way through the open windows of a stately pile of
buildings designed by Inigo Jones for the fourth
Marquess of Mel.

Indeed, the door had not closed behind the ample
rotundities of Mrs. Biddlecombe when he asked
abruptly:

"Ever seen the Saloon at Mel Court?"

"Never, Joe."

"It's furnished just right according to my ideas.
I want to have furniture of that sort.  Georgian—hey?
We'll go there together, when the family are in
town.  In that Saloon I feel as I do in the Cathedral—reg'lar
saint!  It's spiffin'!  And every bit of the
period.  Not all English—that don't matter.  The
china will make your mouth fairly water, the finest
Oriental!  Pictures, too, but of course we can't touch
them yet."

Susan gazed anxiously into his face, which was
glowing with enthusiasm.

"Joe, dear, shall I fetch you a glass of barley
water?"

"Barley water?  Not for Joe!  I've thought of
that, too, my pretty.  I'm going to have a cellar.
None o' your cheap poisons!  Sound port and old
brown sherry, in cut-glass decanters!"

Susan opened her mouth, closed it, and burst into
tears.  At the moment she believed that her clever
Joe had gone quite mad.  The young man kissed
away her tears, and soon brought the ready smile
back to her lips, as the sanity which informed so
remarkably his powers of speech percolated through
her mind.  He might say the strangest and most
surprising things, but they were convincing, indeed
overpoweringly so.  He held her hands, as he talked,
in his masterful grip, and looked keenly into her soft
brown eyes.

"Sue, dear, it's not surprisin' that I surprise you,
because, as I told you before, I surprise myself.  I
lie awake nights wondering at the ideas that come
into my head.  I suppose the old man was such an
example——"

"An example, Joe?"

"Of how not to do things!  Lawsy, what a
wriggler, to be sure, twisting and turning in the dark,
and disliking the light.  Wouldn't clean our
windows, because he didn't want our customers to see
the fakes too plainly.  We just pigged it.  You
know that?  Yes.  I had to make a flannel shirt
last a fortnight.  Same way with food.  Cheap
meat, badly cooked.  Stunted my growth, it did,
but not my mind.  I used to spend my time thinking
what I'd do when I got out of Melchester."

"Out of Melchester?"

Susan and her mother were in and of the ancient
town.  In these days of cheap excursions and
motor-cars it is not easy to project the mind back to
the time when the middle classes rarely stirred from
home.  To be in Melchester, according to Susan
Biddlecombe, was a pleasure; to be of it, a privilege.
Melchester had imposed upon her its inexorable
conventions, the more inexorable because they were
unformulated, exuding from every pore of the body
corporate.  Chief amongst them perhaps was
veneration for the Bishop, who ruled his diocese with
doctrinal severity tempered by gifts of port wine and
tea and beef.  Nonconformity was ill at ease and
slightly out of elbows beneath the shadow of the
most beautiful spire in England.  The only Radical
of importance in the town was Pinker, the rich
grocer.  And when the Marquess of Mel said to him,
chaffingly, "Ah, Pinker, why don't you belong to
us?" the honest fellow replied, "It's this way, my
lord.  The Conservative gentry deal with me
because I know my business.  The Radicals buy
from me because I'm a Radical.  They'd sooner
deal with the Stores than with a Tory grocer."

Quinney continued:

"I have my eye on London, Paris, and New York."

"Mercy me!"

"Meanwhile, Melchester is good enough.  But
our house must be a show place—see?"

Susan tried to see, but blinked.

"I shall take some of our customers to our house,
to show them the things they can't have.  I mean,
of course, the things they can't have except at a big
price.  Nothing bothers a collector so much as that.
Your real connoisseur"—Quinney had not yet
mastered the pronunciation of this word—"goes
dotty when he can't get what he wants.  By Gum,
he feels as I used to feel when I wanted you, and the
old man was alive and everlastingly jawing about
Arabella Pinker.  I shall have a lot of Arabellas in
the shop, but my Susans will be at home."

"But, Joe, mother and I were so looking forward
to furnishing the Dream Cottage."

"I know, I know!"  He began to skate swiftly
over the thin ice.  "But your ideas, sweetie, are
so—so semi-detached.  You haven't got the instinct for
the right stuff.  I have.  You and your mother
want to stir up Laburnum Row.  I'm a-going to
make the whole of Melchester sit up and howl.  See?"

Susan nodded.  Very dimly she apprehended
these incredible ambitions, and yet her instinct, no
more at fault than his, whispered to her that Joe
could do it.  From that moment Laburnum Row
appeared in its true proportions.  Quinney said
quickly:

"I'll leave the kitchen and the bedrooms to you,
but, remember, no rubbish."

Accordingly it came to pass that the Dream
Cottage was furnished with charming bits of
Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton, picked up here
and there throughout Wessex.  The rubbish in the
shop was sold *en bloc*, being taken over by a small
dealer.  The premises were put into the hands of a
London decorator, a friend of the great Tomlin.

Upon the day the painters went in Quinney
marched out and married his Susan.





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.. _`THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE`:

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   CHAPTER III

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   THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE

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   \I

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They crossed to Saint Malo two days after the
wedding.  The groom was horribly sea-sick; the bride,
a capital sailor, ministered to him faithfully.  This
experience is recorded, because it opened Joe's eyes
to the fact that physical infirmity is a serious
disability.  He had never been "outed," as he
expressed it, before.  And it was humiliating to reflect
that his small Susan could confront without a qualm
wild waves when he lay prostrate, limp in mind and
body, capable only of cursing Tomlin, who had
dispatched him upon this perilous enterprise.  He
was not too well pleased when Susan kissed his
clammy brow and whispered, "Oh, Joe, I do love to
look after you."  Somehow he had never contemplated
her looking after him.  His very gorge rose
at the thought of his inferiority.  Twenty-four
hours afterwards he felt himself again, the better
perhaps for the upheaval, but the memory of what
he had suffered remained.  He told himself (and
Susan) that he would be satisfied with establishing
himself in London.  New York and Paris could go
hang!

They wandered about Saint Malo, criticizing with
entire candour everything they beheld.  Susan
aired her French; the true Briton expressed a
preference for his own honest tongue.  The
Cathedral aroused certain enthusiasms tempered by
disgust at the tawdry embellishments of the interior.
Susan, however, was impressed by the kneeling men
and women, who wandered in and out at all hours.
She stared at their weather-beaten faces uplifted in
supplication to some unknown saint.  She became
sensible of an emotion passing from them to her, a
desire to kneel with them, to share, so to speak, the
graces and benedictions obviously bestowed upon
them.  For the first time in her life she realized that
religion may be more than an act of allegiance to God.
These simple folk, workers all of them, could spare
five minutes out of a busy morning to pray.  Her
own prayers never varied.  Night and morning she
repeated piously the formulas learned at her mother's
knee.  Upon Sundays she followed more or less
attentively the fine liturgy of the Church of England.
Naturally intelligent and supremely sympathetic,
she could not doubt that prayer meant more to
these Papists than to her, something vital,
something absolutely necessary.  She glanced at her
husband's face, wondering whether he shared her
thoughts.  Joe was worshipping after his own
fashion the Gothic architecture of the nave, and
favourably contrasting it with the transepts.  She
touched his arm timidly.

"Would it be wicked, Joe, to kneel down here?"

Joe stared at her whimsically.

"Do you want to?" he asked.

"Ye-es."

"Well, then, do it.  You ain't going to pray to
that?"  He indicated a graven image, atrociously
bedizened in crude blue and silver tinsel.

"Oh no!" she answered; then she added, with
a blush, "I only want to thank God that we are
here—together."

"Right you are!" said Joe heartily, but he did
not offer to kneel with her.  She moved from him
slowly, with a backward glance, which escaped his
notice, and knelt behind a pillar, covering her face
with her hands, wondering at first what her mother
would say if she could see her, and almost
tremblingly glad that she couldn't.  Oddly enough, when
she began to pray it never occurred to her to use the
old familiar forms.  She thanked God because He
had made her happy; she entreated a continuance
of that happiness in her own artless words, words
she might have used to her mother.  When her
prayer was ended, she became conscious of the
strange intimacy of her invocation.  She felt a glow,
although a minute previously the lower temperature
of the Cathedral after the warm sunshine without
had struck her chillingly.  When she rose from her
knees, her eyes were shining.  She returned to her
husband, who said: "Regular mix-up we have here.
Let's skin out of it."



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   \II

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They travelled by easy stages to Treguier, their
destination, stopping overnight at Saint Brieux and
Guingamp.  By the luck of things they happened
to reach Treguier at the time of the great Pardon, *le
Pardon des Pauvres*, the Pardon of Brittany's
greatest and most potent Saint—*Yves de la Vérité*.
Everything also combined to make this new
experience an imperishable memory.  Their hotel in
Treguier was charmingly clean and comfortable, an
inn of the olden time kept by two elderly spinsters.
It overlooked the river Jaudy flowing placidly to
the sea.  Beyond, under soft skies, lay the Breton
landscape, quietly pastoral, pleasingly undulating,
with a thin mist revealing rather than obscuring its
beauty.  Susan woke early, hearing the sound of
sabots upon the quay, and the tinkle of bells upon
the horses.  She went to the open window and
looked out.  Already the town was full of pilgrims,
peasants in the costume of the country, all
chattering and gesticulating.  Some had come in boats.
Susan marked the whiteness of the women's coifs
and the stout cloth of their gowns.  When they
laughed, she saw rows of white teeth; their faces
were superbly tanned by sun and wind; they looked
what they were—the sisters, the wives, the mothers
of strong men.  Amongst them, terribly conspicuous
wandered a few beggars, disease-stricken
wretches importuning alms of the healthy, pointing
shrivelled, dirty hands at their dreadful sores,
advertising, almost triumphantly, their poverty and
misery.  Susan had learned from the two sisters
that this was the fête of the ver poor, she had been
warned to expect a parade of misery and deformity,
and Mademoiselle Yannik had added softly, "Look
you, madame, it is good, when one is young and
strong and happy, to look sometimes at these
*misérables*."



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   \III

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The Pardon is not held at Treguier, nor at Minihy,
but on the other side of the Jaudy, upon a hill near
Porz-Bihan.  Here, in former times, stood a chapel,
now in ruins; only the ossuary is left, in which may
still be found an image of the great Saint, very old,
very crudely fashioned, but supremely interesting
by reason of the veneration with which it is regarded
by the peasants.  The Quinneys watched the
pilgrims coming and going in a never-ending procession.
Each offered prayers and oblations in copper
to the Saint, who stared down upon them with that
vague, impersonal regard which would seem to
indicate indifference or lassitude.  Upon an altar
were ranged other saints, rude images of painted
wood, saints never canonized, and looking as if they
resented the unique honour paid to Yves le
Véridique.  Many of the pilgrims muttered some
formula in Breton, which afterwards Mademoiselle
Yannik translated for Susan.  It ran: "If theirs
be the right, condemn us.  If ours be the right,
condemn them."  For this is the patron saint
of lawyers, and of the poor oppressed by the
law.  The procession of *Misérables* followed.  An
Englishman told the tale of the Miracle of the Soup
to Susan.  He described vividly a farm hard by
filled with outcasts upon the eve of the Pardon.
And so bitter had been the weather that the farmer
had made small provision for his guests, assured that
only a few would demand his hospitality.  The
*pot-au-feu* hung upon its hook, but there was hardly
soup enough in it to feed half a dozen, and scores
were arriving.  And then suddenly a stranger
appeared, approached the hearth, and affirmed that
there would be enough for all.  Having said this,
he vanished, and, lo, a miracle!  The crowds were
abundantly fed.  The stranger was the Saint himself,
the blessed Yves.  Susan was thrilled, but Joe
whispered to her, "Do you believe that yarn,
Sue?" and she whispered back, "Yes."  He
squeezed her arm as he replied, "Lawsy, you are a
blessed little fool!"

But the great impression remained of poverty and
pain parading before a comparatively prosperous
and healthy crowd, who regarded the unfortunate
with kindly and compassionate eyes.  Susan was
melted to tears, but Joe said emphatically:

"What do you make of this show?"

She replied hesitatingly, "They recognize that the
poor must be always with them."

Joe persisted.

"How does this apply to you and me?"

"We must help when we can, dear."

"We have to help, Sue.  Rates and taxes.  By
Gum, I've never seen such a lot of wretched devils in
all my life.  And the sight o' their misery just hits a
particular nail of mine bang on the head.  Drives it
home, like.  Me and you must never be poor.  We
must pull together against the remotest chance o'
poverty."

"They can't help it, Joe."

"Perhaps not, but we can."

They returned in a chastened mood to the
excellent dinner provided at the inn.



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   \IV

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Next day they paid a visit to the great artist, who
reproduced so wonderfully pieces of old furniture.
Fortunately for the Quinneys, the Englishman,
whom they had met at the Pardon, accompanied
them.  He happened to be staying at the same inn,
and knew *le pays Tregorrois* as well as, indeed much
better than, Quinney knew Melshire.  Also he spoke
French fluently, and could make himself understood
in Breton.  Lastly, he was something of a collector
of Breton *faience* and old oak, a buyer in a small way
of chests and panelling.  The Quinneys interested
him enormously.  Joe was evidently an original, and
Susan, as evidently, the reverse, and the more
attractive on that account in masculine eyes.  He swooped
upon the immense differences in the characters of
bride and groom, having the instinct of the explorer,
and promised himself some amusement in studying
them.  Joe had been as frank with him as he was with
Mrs. Biddlecombe.

"I've powers within me," he explained, over a
matutinal pipe.  "They push me on—see?"

George Le Marchant nodded, smiling pleasantly.

"Pushed you across the Channel?" he suggested.

"Just so.  Beastly crossin'—humiliatin'.  Felt like
a scoured worm!"

Susan interrupted.  She saw that Le Marchant,
although he wore shabby clothes, was a gentleman.

"That'll do, Joe."

"Nearly did 'do' for me.  The wife"—he liked
this expression, having heard Pinker use it—"the
wife fairly wallered in it.  Blue water, wind and
waves—ugh!"

"It would have been just lovely," Susan admitted,
"if Mr. Quinney——"

"Hadn't 'ad his bloomin' head in a basin.  No, I
ain't going to say another word.  Disgusting about
fits it.  Well, I was saying it was something stronger
than meself drove me out of good old England."

"Mr. Tomlin," put in Susan.  She added for the
benefit of the stranger, "He's a big London dealer."

Joe snorted.

"Tomlin ain't stronger than me, Susan.  He's
bigger in the trade, that's all, and come to his full
growth, too.  I'm sorter speak sproutin'.  Do you
know Tomlin, of the Fulham Road?"

"Oh yes."

Le Marchant smiled faintly.  Quinney, intent upon
his own glorification, missed a derisive expression,
but Susan was sharper.  She decided instantly that
there had been "dealings" between the great Tomlin
and this nice gentleman, and that they had not been
entirely satisfactory.  Joe continued, warming to his
work:

"Tomlin told me about this faker of old oak."

"But he's not a faker.  Really, you must purge
your mind of that.  He's an artist.  Dealers, of course,
buy his reproductions and sell them again as authentic
antiques, but he sells them at a moderate price
for what they are—superb copies.  They are so
masterly in every detail that you won't know the
copy from the original when you see both together."

"Oh, won't I?" said Quinney.  "I've a lot to
learn, and I'm learning something every day, but old
oak is my hobby.  I've handled it since I was a baby,
and I shall know."

"We'll see," said Le Marchant, smiling.  "What
did you think of the Pardon yesterday?"

He addressed Susan, but Joe answered, taking it
for granted that his opinion was worth something.

"Rum show!  Very—French, hey?  Praying hard
all the morning didn't prevent 'em from getting jolly
tight in the afternoon."

Le Marchant laughed.

"These are Bretons, Mr. Quinney.  Celts, not Latins."

He began to explain, talking very pleasantly, with
a knowledge of his subject which challenged Susan's
attention.  She liked to hear about people so different
from herself; their quaint superstitions, their ardent
beliefs, and the primitive simplicity of their lives
appealed to her strangely.  But she was quick to
perceive that Joe was bored.  His shrewd face wore
an expression gradually becoming familiar to her.
Later he would say that there was nothing "in"
such talk.  It didn't lead anywhere; at any rate not
in the directions whither Susan and he were steering.
Why couldn't Le Marchant talk about that Quimper
pottery, those jolly old figures of the Saints and
Saintesses.  A man might pick up a wrinkle or two
worth something listening to *that*.  He knocked the
ashes from his pipe and rose to his feet.

"Ain't we wastin' valuable time?" he asked.



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   \V

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The establishment of the master copyist much
impressed Quinney on account of its size.  The
visitors were shown everything, and the proprietor
said to Mrs. Quinney:

"Vous voyez, madame, je ne cache pas mon jeu, moi."

"What's he sayin'?" asked Joe.

Le Marchant answered.

"He assures us that he's not a faker."

They beheld tanks of acid in which new ironwork
was placed.  In a few hours or days the corroding
acid achieved the work of years.  There were piles of
wood, new and old, awaiting treatment.  Quinney
asked if there was a worm-holing machine.  He had
heard that one had been patented.  The proprietor
laughed.

"The worms themselves do the work here,
monsieur."

Then he placed in Joe's hands two wooden candle-sticks.

"One of these," said he, "is genuine, and worth
its weight in gold, a fine specimen of the sixteenth
century.  The other was made here within a year.
Which is which?"

"Lawsy!" said Quinney.  "I ought to know."

He examined them very carefully, and guessed wrong.

Le Marchant smiled, well pleased, because he had
predicted truly.  The proprietor pointed to a bureau
of oak, exquisitely carved.

"Is that old or new, monsieur?"

Quinney spent five minutes in examining the
specimen, feeling the "patine," scraping it with his
nail, staring through his glass at the marks of the
chisels.

"It's old," said he at last.

"It's quite new, monsieur."

"I'm fairly done," said Joe.  "This beats the
world, this does."

"That piece," said the proprietor, "is signed by
me here," and he showed Quinney two interlaced
initials, cleverly concealed.  "The original is in the
Cluny, and valued by experts at four thousand
pounds.  I can sell it for sixteen pounds."

"Mark it 'sold,'" said Joe.

He bought chests old and new, panelling, tables
and chairs, desks and wardrobes.  The proprietor
smiled, rubbing his hands together.

"Obviously, monsieur is in the business?"

"I am," replied Quinney, "and, by Gum, I
thought I knew my business till I met you."

Le Marchant acted as interpreter.  The three
returned to Treguier and breakfasted upon the small
terrace overlooking the Jaudy.  Quinney was in the
highest spirits.  But to Susan's dismay, he talked of
returning to England and finishing their honeymoon
in a country where a man could make himself
understood.  What about Weymouth?  What price nice
sands?  He assured Le Marchant that his Susan
liked paddling, because she could show a neat pair of
ankles.  Also they could nip over to Dorchester.
Rare place that for old stuff!  Inevitably he returned
to his business with an enthusiasm which indicated
that he found it more engrossing than ordinary
honeymooning.  Susan listened with a tiny wrinkle
between her smooth brows.  When Quinney rushed
upstairs to fill his pouch with English tobacco, Le
Marchant said thoughtfully:

"Wonderfully keen, isn't he?"

The swiftness of her answer surprised him.

"Do you think he's too keen?"

He evaded the eager question.

"As for that, Mrs. Quinney, one can hardly be too
keen in business nowadays."

"I meant—is he too keen for his own happiness?"

He hesitated.  On the morrow he would go his way,
and, humanly speaking, there was little probability
of his meeting this particular couple again.  He
wondered vaguely what the future held for them.
Then he shrugged his shoulders and laughed.

"His keenness might make for his happiness.  I
divide the people I know into two classes, those who
care for things and those who care for persons."

"Surely a man can care for both?"

"One must be the dominant interest."

"You think it's bad to care too much for things?"

"You are very sharp.  However, in this case there
isn't much cause for serious alarm."

"Why not?"

He stared pensively at her charming face, thinking
that Quinney was indeed a lucky fellow to have
captured and captivated so sweet a creature.

"Well, you stand between him and false gods."

"False gods!  What a good way of describing
faked Chelsea figures!"





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   CHAPTER IV


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   THE INSTALLATION

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   \I

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Mrs. Biddlecombe welcomed the homing couple
when they returned to the Dream Cottage, but she
positively refused to forsake the semi-detached in
Laburnum Row, although Quinney, for his part, was
willing to entertain a mother-in-law indefinitely, if
Susan wished it.  Susan, rather to his surprise, did
not wish it.  And the obvious fact that her husband
considered the matter of small importance slightly
distressed her, as indicating an abnormal indifference
to *persons* which contrasted oddly with his absorption
in *things* of wood and stone, graven images, let
us call them, which the almighty Tomlin had set up
in the freshly decorated and enlarged premises in
Mel Street.  Tomlin, indeed, had sent down a lot of
stuff, and some of it was very good.  Joe could hardly
tear himself from the porcelain, and gloated over the
blue and white, so Susan affirmed, as if he wished to
kiss it.

The London dealer followed his crates.

He expressed unqualified approval of what Joe
had bought in Brittany, taking, however, most of the
credit to himself, inasmuch as he had dispatched
Quinney to Treguier.  The younger man grinned,
wondering what Tomlin would say when he beheld
the Dream Cottage and its furniture.  He arranged
that Mrs. Biddlecombe should be present upon that
memorable occasion, for he was well aware that the
good soul did not share his enthusiasm for mahogany,
and that she resented his criticism of her burked
schemes of decoration.

Need it be recorded that Quinney triumphed?
Tomlin was so impressed that he said gaspingly,
"I'll take the lot off your hands, Joe, at a
twenty-five per cent. advance."

"No, you won't!" replied Joe.  "Our furniture is
not for sale, old man.  Not yet, by Gum!"

"You are a wonder!" said Tomlin generously.

"Isn't he?" exclaimed Susan.

It was a great moment.

Late dinner followed, a *partie carrée*.  Joe provided
champagne, and port in a cut-glass decanter.
Warmed by this splendid hospitality, Tomlin became
anecdotal.  Perhaps he wanted to astonish the ladies.
Unquestionably he succeeded in doing so.  One story
will suffice to illustrate Tomlin's methods, and it was
told, be it remembered, with exuberant chucklings
within two hundred yards of the Cathedral Close.

"It's becoming harder every day, ma'am," he
addressed Mrs. Biddlecombe, "to get hold of the
right stuff—cheap.  I have agents everywhere.  Old
Mr. Quinney was one.  And now and again they hear
of a real bargain.  Often as not the people who 'ave
it won't part.  They would part, ma'am, if they was
offered the right price, but that wouldn't be business.
No.  Well, only the other day, I got hold of the
sweetest table, genuine Adam, and *hand-painted*!  Paid a
fiver for it!"

"Really, did you now?" murmured Mrs. Biddlecombe
For all she knew a "fiver" might be a large
or a small price.  Tomlin continued:

"Yes, ma'am, a fi' pun note.  It was this way.
The table belonged to a decayed gentlewoman, who'd
seen better days, and needed money."

Mrs. Biddlecombe sighed; the anecdote had
become almost personal, and therefore the more
interesting.

"That may happen to any of us," she murmured.

"She had inherited this table from her grandma,"
continued Tomlin, "and my agent heard of it,
and saw it.  He offered the old lady four pun ten,
and she wouldn't deal.  Obstinate as a mule she was!"

"Sensible old dear, I call her," said Quinney.

"My agent was fairly boiled, and then inspiration
struck him.  He never went near the old gal for a
couple of months.  Then he called with a friend, a
stout, red-faced man, bit of an amateur actor.  My
agent introduced him as a collector of choice bits.
Asked if he might show him the little table.  Old
lady was willing enough, and of course the low comedy
feller crabbed it."

"Stale dodge that," remarked Quinney.

"Wait a bit.  After crabbin' it, he pretended to be
interested in other things; and then he began to act
queer.  He'd slipped a bit o' soap into his mouth, so
as to froth proper."

"Gracious me!  Why!" asked Mrs. Biddlecombe.

"Then he went into a regular fit, fell down, and as
he fell grabbed the little table, and broke off one of
its pretty spindle legs.  When he come out of his fit,
my agent said that the least thing a gentleman could
do was to buy the table he'd spoiled.  The old lady
took a fiver as compensation, and jolly glad she was
to get it.  I sold that table to an American millionaire
for one hundred and twenty-five—guineas!"

Mrs. Biddlecombe rose majestically.  She saw that
her son-in-law was laughing.

"Come, Susan, let us leave these *gentlemen* to their
wine."

Susan followed her out of the room.  When the
door was shut behind them, Quinney said:

"Old man, that yarn was a bit too thick for 'em.
See?"

Tomlin laughed boisterously.

"One more glass of port," he replied, "and I'll
tell you another."

He told several; and when the men returned to
the small drawing-room, Susan said timidly that her
mother had gone back to Laburnum Row.  Later,
when she was alone with her husband, she asked a
sharp question:

"Joe, dear, you wouldn't have done what Mr. Tomlin
did, would you?"

"About what, Sue?"

"About that table.  Mother and I thought it
was horrid of him to take advantage of a poor old
lady."

Joe evaded the question cleverly:

"Look ye here, my girl, Tomlin is—well, Tomlin.
Don't you mix him up with me."

"But, Joe, you are mixed up with him—in
business."

"Temporary arrangement, my pretty, nothing more."

He kissed her, murmuring, "Blessed little saint
you are!"



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   \II

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Melchester was profoundly interested in the new
premises, and the other dealers in genuine antiques
went about, so Quinney affirmed, chattering with
rage, and predicting ruin.

"They'll be ruined," said Quinney, chuckling and
rubbing his hands.  "Nobody will buy their muck,
and they know it."

He had very nice hands, with long slender fingers,
manifestly fashioned to pick up egg-shell china.  Also
in spite of his accent, which time might reasonably
be expected to improve, his voice held persuasive
inflections, and the resonant *timbre* of the enthusiast,
likely to ring in the memories of too timid customers,
the collectors who stare at bargains twice a day till
they are snapped up by somebody else.  Quinney
despised these Laodiceans in his heart, but he told
Susan that they did well enough to practise upon.

"You want to get the patter," he told his wife,
"and the best and quickest way is to turn loose on
the *think it overs*.  See?"

It had long been arranged between them that Susan
was to help in the shop and acquire at first hand
intimate knowledge of a complex business.  Quinney
summed up the art of selling stuff in a few pregnant
words.

"Find out what they want, and don't be too keen
to sell to 'em.  Most men, my pretty, and nearly all
the women go dotty over the things hardest to get.
Our best stuff will sell itself, if we go slow.  Old silver
is getting scarcer every day."

Susan smiled at her Joe's words of wisdom.  He
continued fluently: "We've a lot to learn; something
new every hour.  And we shall make bloomin'
errors, again and again.  All dealers do.  Tomlin was
had to rights only last week over two Chippendale
chairs; and he thinks he knows all about 'em.  I've
been done proper over that coffee-pot."

He showed her a massive silver coffee-pot with
finely defined marks upon it.

"A genuine George II bit, Susie, and worth its
weight in gold if it hadn't been tampered with by
some fool later on.  All that repoussé work is
George IV, and I never knew it.  The worst fake is
the half-genuine ones."

"Gracious!" exclaimed his pupil.

"There are lots o' things I don't know, and don't
understand, my girl; all the more reason to hold
tight on to what I do know.  And what I know I'll
try to share with you, and what you know you'll try
to share with me."

"I'm stupid about things," said Susan.

Quinney strolled across the room, and selected two
jars more or less alike in shape and paste and colour.

"Can you tell t'other from which?" he asked.
"Look at 'em, feel 'em inside and out."

Susan obeyed, but after a minute she shook her
head.

"Ain't they just alike, Joe?"

"Lord, no!  One's the real old blue and white,
hand-painted, and worth fifty pound.  T'other is a
reproduction, printed stuff, with a different glaze.
Look again, my pretty!"

"This is the old one, Joe."

"No, it ain't.  Slip your hand inside.  Which is
the smoother and better finished inside?"

"Yes, I feel the difference, but I don't see it.  I
wish I could see it."

"You will.  I'm going to put a little chipped bit of
the best on your toilet table.  You just squint at it
twenty times a day for one year, and you'll know
something.  That's what I'm doing with the earlier
stuff, which is more difficult to be sure of, because it
doesn't look so good.  I wouldn't trust my judgment
to buy it.  That's Tomlin's job."

Susan frowned.

"I don't like Mr. Tomlin, Joe."

"Never asked you to like him, but we can learn a
lot from Tomlin.  See?  He's an expert upon Chinese
and Japanese porcelain and lac.  We've got to suck
his brains."

"Ugh!" said Susan.

During these first few weeks she displayed great
aptitude as a saleswoman.  Her face, so ingenuous in
its expression, her soft voice, her pretty figure
attracted customers.  The price of every article in the
shop was marked in letters which she could turn into
figures.  But this price was a "fancy one," what
Quinney termed a "top-notcher."  Susan was
instructed to take a third less.  Quinney trained her to
answer awkward questions, to make a pretty picture
of ignorance, to pose effectively as the inexperienced
wife keeping the shop during the absence of her
husband.  He had said upon the morning of the grand
opening of *Quinneys'*, "I don't want you to tell lies, Sue."

"I wouldn't for the world," she replied.

He pinched her chin, chuckling derisively.  "I
know you wouldn't; but I don't want you to tell all
the truth neither."

"What do you mean?"

"This oak now.  Me and you know it's new, but
if a customer tells you it's old, don't contradict him.
'Twouldn't be polite.  All you know about it is
this—your clever hubby picked it up in France, in
Brittany.  See?"

She asked anxiously, "It won't be acting a lie,
dear?"

"Not a bit of it!  By Gum, Sue, I'm as proud of
that conscience of yours as I am of that jar.  Not a
flaw in either."

After this she played her part so artlessly that
Joe chuckled half a dozen times a day.  She tackled
the Bishop—alone.  Quinney saw the great man
approaching and told Susan.  She wished to bolt,
but Quinney disappeared instead, listening to the
duologue that followed.  The Bishop stared at the
fine wares from Tomlin's, whipped out his spectacles,
and entered, smiling at Susan's blushing face.

"Good-morning, my lord!"

"Good-morning, Mrs. Quinney.  May I look at
some of these tempting things?"

He looked at what was best amongst the porcelain
sent down by Tomlin, displaying knowledge of
the different periods.  Then he said courteously,
"As this is my first visit, I must buy something
for luck.  What is the price of that small jar
with the *prunus* decoration?  If it is within my
means——"

He paused, gravely expectant, but Susan divined
somehow what was flitting through his mind; the
outrageous prices exacted by old Quinney.  She
perceived that this was a test purchase.  The price
of the jar was marked five pounds.  Susan said
demurely, "We can sell this to you, my lord, for
three pounds ten."

"I'll take it, Mrs. Quinney."

He went away with his purchase in his hand.
Quinney came back, not too well pleased.

"He'd have given a fiver for it.  Why didn't you
ask more than we was prepared to take?"

Susan, knowing her own strength, answered
decisively:

"His lordship confirmed me, Joe."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"He knows about china.  He passed by the
inferior stuff.  I wanted him to tell his friends that
our prices were very reasonable; and I wanted him
to come again.  He promised that he would.  And
I think the clergy, our own clergy, ought to be
treated—generously."

"By Gum, you're right!" said Quinney.  "They'll
tell the old women that our prices touch bottom,
reg'lar bargains."

She was equally successful with Mrs. Nish, a
widow of ample means and an ardent collector.
Mrs. Nish may have seen the Bishop's jar and have
learned from him that it had been bought at a
modest figure.  She came in next day, richly
rustling in black silk, a large, imposing woman, with
a deportment that indicated opulence and a
complexion heightened by good living.  Mr. Nish had
accumulated a fortune in Australia, sheep-farming,
and had died—as so many such men do—when he
retired from active business.  His widow bought a
large house standing in a small garden, just outside
Melchester.  The Close called upon her (not the
County), because she subscribed generously to local
charities.  Her taste, however, was flamboyantly
rococo; and on that account Quinney despised her,
although he admitted to Susan that she might be
educated.  When he beheld her pair of prancing
bays, he whispered to Susan, "Have a go at the old
girl!"  Then he retreated discreetly to his inner room.
Mrs. Nish greeted Susan with much affability, and
immediately mentioned the Bishop, "my lording"
him with unction.  The jar with *prunus* decoration
was spoken of as a little prune pot.

"I want one just like it."

"I'm afraid," said Susan, "that you will not find
another just like it."

"As near as may be," said Mrs. Nish.

"The only other jar with similar decoration, and
of the same period, is this."

She displayed the finest jar in their possession,
adding, "The price is fifty pounds."

Mrs. Nish was tremendously impressed.

"It can't be worth all that," she protested.

"I think his lordship would tell you that it was.
We don't expect to sell it.  In fact it belongs to
somebody else.  We get a small commission if it is
sold."

Susan carefully replaced the jar, and picked up
its counterfeit.

"This is modern, madam, a very clever production,
made by the same factory in China.  We ask
five pounds for this."

"I don't buy fakes."

"Of course not, madam.  My husband says
Lord Mel has not a finer piece of blue and white than
that."

Mrs. Nish turned aside to examine the oak, but
her eyes wandered now and again to the big jar.
Susan knew that she was thinking how pleasant it
would be to say carelessly, "Oh, yes; I paid fifty
pounds for that."

Quinney carried the jar to her house late that
afternoon, and he told Susan that she was a clever dear.

"You like the work?" he asked.

She hesitated.

"I like being with you, Joe."

"Good!  You can consider yourself permanently
engaged, Mrs. Quinney."

"Permanently?"

His quick ear detected an odd inflection.  He
glanced at her sharply, and saw a faint blush.  In
silence they stared at each other.  Then Quinney
kissed her, pinched her cheek, pulled her small ear,
as he said boisterously:

"Ho!  Another job in view?"

She whispered:

"I—I think so."





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.. _`SUSAN PREPARES`:

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   CHAPTER V


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   SUSAN PREPARES

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   \I

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When Susan left the shop and returned to her own
house to make preparations for a visitor, she went
unwillingly, postponing the hour that meant
separation from the man she loved, making light of his
anxiety, but secretly rejoicing in it.  Her faithful
heart dwelt with apprehension upon a future spent
apart from Joe, apart from the excitements of the
shop, a future of small things and small people.  She
tried to visualize herself as a mother and the vision
was blurred.  When she said rather timidly, "What
will you do without me?" he had assured her with
vain repetitions that he had more than enough to
occupy his mind.  The dolorous conclusion was
inevitable.  Joe could get along without a partner in
the shop.  But she could not conceive of life without
him.

During this period of intermittent joys and fears,
chasing each other daily and nightly through her
brain, Susan was humorously conscious that Joe
regarded the coming baby as his rather than hers.
He would say, chuckling, "Well, Mrs. Q., how is *my*
baby this morning?  Any news of him?"  The sex
of the child was taken for granted.  Susan had
sufficient obstinacy and spirit to resent this cocksure
attitude.  From the first she maintained that it
would be a girl.  Mrs. Biddlecombe was much shocked
at the intimate nature of conversations carried on
before her.  The good woman belonged to a generation
which never mentioned babies till they lay in
bassinettes, fit to be seen and worshipped by all the
world.  Quinney trampled upon these genteel
sensibilities.

"The kid *is* comin'—ain't it?"

"We hope so," replied his mother-in-law austerely.

"We know it, old dear.  Why not talk about it?
Joe Quinney, junior!  There you are!"

"It sounds so—indelicate."

"That be blowed for a tale!  Lawsy, there's no
saying what my son may not be.  Think o' my brains
and his dear little mother's looks."  Worse followed.
He began to call Susan "mother."  Mrs. Biddlecombe
protested in vain.  Laburnum Row laughed openly.
Everybody knew!  One terrible morning, a disgusting
small boy shouted after her, "Hullo, gran'ma!"

Mrs. Biddlecombe, moreover, had no sympathy
with Susan's ardent desire to remain near her
husband, intimately connected with the things which
interested him so tremendously.  She lacked the
quickness of wit to perceive what Susan instinctively
recognized, the increasing and ever-absorbing
love that this queer young man manifested for his
business.  In that business, in the unwearying quest
for beautiful objects, the wife foreshadowed a rival,
a rival the more to be feared because it was amorphous,
senseless, chaotic.  She took little pleasure in
the beautiful furniture which filled the Dream
Cottage, because she could never feel that it was hers.
She would have chosen things which he despised as
rubbish, but they would have been very dear to her.
In a real sense Joe's furniture stood massively
between husband and wife.  Again and again when she
was hungering for soft words and caresses, he would
stand in front of the Chippendale china cabinet, and
apostrophize it with ardour, calling upon Susan to
share his enthusiasm, slightly irritable with her when
she failed to perceive the beauty in what she summed
up in her own mind as "sticks and stones."  She
hated to see him stroke fine specimens of porcelain.
She came within an ace of smashing a small but
valuable Ming jar because he kissed it.  Her
condition must be taken into account, but above and
beyond any physical cause soared the conviction,
that her Joe's business might become the greatest
thing in his life, growing, as he predicted it would, to
such enormous proportions that there would be no
room for her.  Once she prayed that his soaring
ambitions might be clipped by a merciful Providence.
She rose from her knees trembling at her audacity,
telling herself that she was disloyal.  And then she
laughed, half hysterically, supremely sensible that
her Joe would travel far upon the road he had chosen,
and that it behoved her to quicken her steps, and not
to lag behind, for it was certain that he would expect
her to keep up.

She had to pass some lonely hours.  Mrs. Biddlecombe
neglected no duties connected with her own
house, and the work at the Dream Cottage was done
meticulously by the competent servant whom
Mrs. Biddlecombe had installed there, and over whom she
exercised a never-flagging vigilance.  Quinney issued
orders that the mistress was to be spared.  She was
quite capable of doing many things which the robust
Maria would not allow her to do.  Even the delight of
sewing upon minute garments was circumscribed.
Quinney, after secret "colloguing" with Mrs. Biddlecombe,
prepared a surprise.  An amazing basket
arrived from London, embellished with pale blue
ribbon, and filled with a layette fit—so the
advertisement said—for "a little lord."

Quinney attached a label inscribed with the
following legend:

"To Joseph Quinney, Jr., Esq., care of Mother."

Susan's feelings upon the receipt of this superb and
complete outfit—I quote again from the advertisement—were
of the bitterest—sweetest.  She had set
her heart upon making her child's clothes, and she
sewed exquisitely.  She had to pretend that she was
overwhelmed with surprise and gratitude, and Joe's
delight in her simulated delight partly compensated
her for being so grossly deceitful.  Wild plans entered
her head for compassing the destruction of the layette.
During one awful moment she experienced the
monstrous thrills of a Nero, for the thought had come to
her, "Why not burn the furniture and the basket
together?"  The cottage and furniture were handsomely
insured!  A mild perspiration broke upon her
forehead, as she murmured to herself:

"What a wicked, wicked girl I am!"



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   \II

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She distracted her mind by reading novels, and
was mightily interested in the works of Rosa
Nouchette Carey.  In the middle of the day Joe would rush
in, kiss her tenderly, inquire after Master Quinney,
sit down to dinner, and chatter boisterously of his
business.  His solicitude for her comfort never failed,
but its insistence became enervating.  She had
excellent health, and was happily free from the
minor ills which afflict many women in her condition.
But this sort of talk became exasperatingly monotonous:

"Feelin' fine, are you?"

"Oh yes, Joe."

"Any one bloomin' thing you fancy?"

"Nothing."

"Not worriting?  No stewin' in your own juice, hey?"

"No, no, no!"

"Good.  Everything is going to be all right.
Lucky little dear, you are, to have a hubby who looks
after you properly, and Joe Quinney, junior, will be
looked after also.  Make no error about that.  He's
going to be a very remarkable young man!  Chose
his parents with rare right judgments he did.  By
Gum, when I read that little 'ad.' about his kit bein'
fit for a lord, I says to myself, 'Why not?  Why
shouldn't my son be a lord one day?'"

"Joe, you are funny!"

"Funny?  I'm dead serious, my girl.  This stream,"
he tapped an inflated chest, "rose higher than its
source.  It began not far from the gutter, Susie.  I'm
not ashamed of it.  Nothing of the snob about Joe
Quinney!  I'm a bit of a river.  I'm marked on the
map.  I flow all over the shop; yes, I do.  And my
son may become a sort of Amazon.  Do you know
how many square miles the Amazon waters?"

"Gracious, no!"

"Useful bit of knowledge.  Nigh upon three million
square miles!"

"Mercy!"

"I see Joe Quinney, junior, percolatin' everywhere,
bang from one end of the Empire to another."

"She's not born yet, poor little dear!"

"She!  There you go again."

"I'm sure it will be a 'she.'"

"Not him.  You trust my judgment.  It's a gift
with me.  All great men have it.  Bonyparte and
Wellington and Julius Cæsar."

"You do go it."

"That's right.  Do for a motto, that would.  Go
it!  Keep a-moving!  The people in this silly old
town are standin' still, up to their knees in their
graves already, poor souls!"

Then he would kiss her again, and bolt off to the
shop, chuckling and rubbing his hands.

Susan would return to her novel, and bury hopes
and fears in the mild adventures of a conventional
and highly respectable pair of lovers.  She had
always liked sweets, but at this period she enjoyed a
surfeit of them.  The sentiment that exuded from
every page of her favourite romances affected her
tremendously, and may have affected her unborn
child.



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   \III

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Upon the eve of the child's birth, nearly a year
after her marriage, Susan wrote a letter to her
husband.  She had spent the day pottering about her
bedroom, turning over certain clothes, notably her
wedding-gown, and recalling vividly the events
succeeding her marriage, the journey to France, all the
pleasant incidents of the honeymoon.  From a small
desk which had belonged to her father, a solid
rosewood box clamped with brass, she took certain
"treasures," a bit of heather picked by Joe when they
took a jaunt together to the New Forest, a trinket or
two, a lock of Joe's hair, his letters tied up in pink
ribbon and her birth certificate, solemnly thrust into
her hand by Mrs. Biddlecombe upon the morning ol
the wedding.  Inside the desk remained a few sheets
of the "fancy" notepaper which she had used as a
maid.  She selected a new nib, placed it in an ivory
penholder, and began to write:

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"MY DARLING HUSBAND,

.. vspace:: 1

"I want to tell you that the last year has been
the happiest of my life.  I don't believe that I can
ever be quite so happy again.  You have been sweet
to me.  When I have tried to tell you this, you have
always laughed, and so I want to write it down.

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   "Your loving
       "SUSIE.

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"P.S.—I hope you will marry again."

.. vspace:: 2

She placed the letter in an envelope to match,
addressed it, and wrote above it, "To be opened
after my death."  Then she shed a few tears, feeling
lonely and frightened, peering into the gulf which
yawned in front of her, knowing that the hour was
almost at hand, when she must fall down, down, down
into unplumbed abysses of terror and pain.

She locked up the letter in the desk, put on a cloak,
and crawled into the Cathedral, whose vastness
always impressed her.  The great nave was strangely
familiar, yet unfamiliar.  A soft, silvery light diffused
itself.  Susan noticed that she was alone, whereas she
was accustomed to the Sunday crowd.  The silence
seemed to enfold her.  It struck her suddenly that
for many hours during each day and night the great
church wherein she had worshipped since she was a
child, was empty and silent, a mere sepulchre of the
mighty dead, who, lying in their splendid tombs,
awaited the Day of Resurrection.

Did they ever come forth at night?

What did it feel like to be dead?

Such questions had never seriously presented
themselves to her before, because she was normally
healthy in mind and body.  Death, indeed, had been
acclaimed in Laburnum Row as a not unwelcome
excitement for the living, an incident that loosened
all tongues, which called for criticism, and a good
deal of eating and drinking.  Now, alone amongst
the dead, Susan considered the inevitable change
from the point of view, so to speak, of those who
were "taken."  She was accustomed to these odd
middle-class euphuisms.  This particular expression,
invariably used by Mrs. Biddlecombe, indicated
a certain selection upon the part of the Reaper, who
"took" presumably those, whether young or old,
who were ripe for the sickle.

Susan shivered, praying fervently that she might
be spared, that she might be deemed unripe.  Her
thoughts flitted hither and thither, not straying far
from the austere figure with the sickle, settling now
upon this hypothesis and now upon that.  For
example, the commonest form of condolence in
Laburnum Row, leaping smugly from every matronly
lip, was, "He (or she) has entered into rest."  Or,
with tearful conviction, "God's will be done."  To
doubt the truth of these statements would have
seemed to Susan rank blasphemy.  Even now, face
to face with the awful possibility, her simple mind
sucked comfort from them; they fortified her
trembling body for the great ordeal.  But, at
the same time, she was conscious of a feeling of
revolt, because life was so sweet, and her enchanting
pilgrimage had just begun.  It would be cruel to
take her!

And how would it affect Joe?

He would have his business; he would absorb
himself in that.  If he did marry again he would
choose some sensible woman, able to look after his
house and his child.  She could not bear the horrid
thought that a second wife might be prettier than the
first, that her Joe might forget her kisses upon the lips
of another woman.  She murmured to herself, "Joe
can't do without me.  I shall not be taken this time."

She went back to the Dream Cottage, unlocked
her desk, opened her letter, and added these words
to the postscript:

"Marry a nice sensible woman, not quite so pretty
as I am, one who will be kind to my baby."

She stared at this for some time, pursing up her
lips.  Then she carefully erased the possessive
pronoun, and wrote "your" instead of "my."

She was smiling when she locked the desk.



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   \IV

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Ten days afterwards the child was born.  Quinney
was summoned at four in the afternoon by the
breathless Maria, who gasped out that he was
wanted.  Somehow Quinney leapt to the conclusion
that all was over.

"Is the baby born?" asked Quinney.

"No, nor likely to be till after midnight."

She whisked off, leaving an astonished man vaguely
wondering from what source Maria had received this
positive information.  He closed the shop, and then
ran home.  The doctor was leaving the cottage.
Again Quinney stammered out:

"Is it over?"

"Just begun," the doctor replied.  Quinney
hated him because he looked so blandly
self-possessed and indifferent.

"Mrs. Biddlecombe is with her," continued the
doctor, in the same suavely impassive tone.  "They
will send for me later.  Good-afternoon!"

Quinney wanted to reply, "Oh, you go to blazes!
I shall send for somebody else; a man, not a
machine," but he merely glared at the doctor, and
nodded.  Pelting upstairs, two steps at a time, he
encountered Mrs. Biddlecombe upon the landing,
with her forefinger on her lip.

"Not so much noise, *please*!" she commanded,
with the air and deportment of an empress.  It
struck Quinney that she had expanded enormously.
Also she was dressed for the part, wearing an
imposing dressing-gown, and felt slippers.  Quinney
had an odd feeling that she was enjoying herself at
Susie's expense.  Secretly he was furious, because
she seemed to block the entrance to *his* room.  He
tried to push past her.

"Where are you going, Joseph?"

He was quite confounded, but from long habit he
replied in his jerky, whimsical way:

"Into my room o' course.  Where did you think
I was going?  Into the coal cellar?"

Mrs. Biddlecombe answered with majesty, not
budging:

"We"—Maria was indicated as an accomplice—"have
got another room ready for you."

Quinney said resolutely, "I'm a-going to stay with
Susie till it's over."

"No, you ain't!"

"Yes, I am!"

She gripped his arm.  Her voice was coolly
contemptuous, but she spoke with authority.

"No, you ain't.  'Tisn't seemly."

"That be damned!"

"Joseph Quinney!  And an innocent unborn babe
might hear you!  Now, listen to me, and do just as I
tell you.  Men ain't wanted on these occasions.  You
can go in and see Susan for a few minutes, but,
remember, out you go when I say the word.  Try to
be a help and not an hindrance.  I sent for you
because you may be wanted to run for the doctor."

"Run from 'im more likely," said Quinney.
"Cold-blooded beast."

"He's just what a gentleman should be at such
times.  You take pattern by him!  Now, go in, don't
shout, say something cheerful, and leave the room
when I nod."

Throughout this speech Quinney was conscious
that his will was ebbing from him.  The mother-in-law
triumphed by virtue of superior knowledge and
experience.  Quinney respected knowledge.

"But if Susie wants me to stay——?"

"She won't."

He entered the room.  Somehow he had expected
to find his wife in bed, pale, frightened, passive.  She
was walking up and down.  Her cheeks were red, her
eyes were bright.  And yet there was something about
her, some hunted expression in the tender eyes, some
nervous tension which moved the man tremendously.
His eyes brimmed with tears, his voice broke, as he
called her by name.  For a moment they clung to
each other, and he wondered at her strength.
Mrs. Biddlecombe, frowned portentously.  There were
moments when she told herself that Susan had
married a very common person.

"That'll do," she said.  "We don't want any flustrations."

Susan murmured:

"Dear, dear Joe!"

She pulled down his head and kissed the tears from
his eyes.  It was a moment of pure bliss for her.
They sat down, holding each other's hands, oblivious
of Mrs. Biddlecombe, who still stared at them, trying
to remember how the late Mr. Biddlecombe had
behaved when Susan was born, and vaguely mindful of
his conspicuous absence, and the discovery later that
he had assuaged his anxiety with strong waters.

Meanwhile, Susan's tenderness had aroused in her
husband the determination to vanquish his mother-in-law.
The power to cope with her surged within.

"You want me to stay, Susie?"

"Oh yes, till the pain comes."

"And after?"

"No, no!"

"But why, why?"

She looked prettier and sweeter than he had ever
seen her when she whispered:

"I couldn't bear for you to see my face.  It, it,"
her voice quivered, "it frightens me.  Just now I
looked in the glass, and I didn't recognize it as mine."

"There!" exclaimed Mrs. Biddlecombe.

"I shall do as Susan wishes," said Quinney humbly.

"You will leave the room when I nod?"

"Please!" said Susan, with her arms about his neck.

Presently Mrs. Biddlecombe nodded.





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.. _`THE VISITOR ARRIVES`:

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   CHAPTER VI


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   THE VISITOR ARRIVES

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   \I

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Quinney went downstairs, whistling softly to hide a
growing perturbation of spirit.  He could not
disguise from himself that he was terribly worried.  Till
now he had bolstered anxiety with the reflection that
what was happening had happened before to millions
and billions (he loved big figures) of women, but he
had never realized that each and all of them had
suffered cruel pain.  When Susan spoke of her changed
face, a spasm of agony twisted him.  He resented
fiercely the conviction that his wife must suffer, and
he divined somehow, partly from Mrs. Biddlecombe
and partly from Susan, that the pain was greater
than he had supposed.  He salved his quivering
sensibilities with the balm applied by all husbands
at such moments; she was young, healthy, and strong.
She would pull through.  And yet, the damnable
thought that sometimes things did happen grew and
grew.

He descended into a modest cellar, and brought up
a bottle of port, which he decanted carefully.  It was
the best wine that could be bought in Melchester,
and he had secured a couple of dozen with the
intention of drinking his son's health many times.  He
tasted it to satisfy himself that the wine was in
prime condition.  He held it to the light and marked
its superb colour.  Then he sat down to read the
paper, as was his habit when the day's work was
done.  Pinker, the grocer, and other men of substance
in Melchester, were too fond of boasting that they
read the morning paper in the morning before attending
to the paramount claims of their own business.
This attitude of mind towards the affairs of the nation
perplexed Quinney, who frankly considered his own
affairs first.  He belonged to that once immense
majority of his fellow-countrymen—a majority much
decreased of late years—who believe that certain
altruists manage more or less successfully the
business of the country.  He was quite willing to allow
these gentlemen, whose services were unpaid, a
comparatively free hand upon the unexpressed condition
that they did not bother him or interfere with the
conduct of his private affairs.  At that time the Tories
were in power, coming to the end of a long tenure of
office.  Quinney passively approved of the Tories,
and actively disliked Radicals, whom he stigmatized
generally as mischief-makers.  Under certain
circumstances he would have been a red-hot Radical.
During his father's lifetime, for instance, when he
groaned in secret beneath the heel of oppression, he
would have been eager—had the opportunity presented
itself—to join any secret society organized for
the overthrow of "tyrants."

He read the paper through, criticizing nothing
except the wording of certain advertisements.  He
meant to advertise his own wares some day, although
Tomlin believed in more particular methods.  In the
early 'nineties, small tradesmen had no faith in
Advertisements.  They built up a small but solid
connection, which they came to regard as unalienably
theirs.

Presently Quinney lit his pipe, and his thoughts
with the smoke strayed upstairs.  Mrs. Biddlecombe
appeared.

"Smoking?"

Quinney, conscious of implied censure, replied
defiantly:

"Generally called that, ain't it?"

"You can smoke outside."

"I can, but I won't.  How's Susie?"

The inevitable answer distressed him terribly.

"Susan will be much worse before she's better.
You can fetch the nurse, and finish your pipe while
you are fetching her."

He fetched the nurse, who lived not far away in a
row of small jerry-built houses.  She was a tall, thin
woman, with a nice complexion, and hair prematurely
white.  Her invincible optimism much fortified our
hero.  And she possessed an immense reserve of
small talk, and intimate knowledge of simple,
elemental details connected with her profession.  She
captured Quinney's affection by saying, after the
first glance at his face:

"Now, don't you worry, Mr. Quinney, because
there's nothing to worry about with Dr. Ransome
and me in charge of the case.  We never have any
trouble with our patients.  You'll be the proud father
of a big fat baby-boy before you know where you are."

She talked on very agreeably, but she managed to
convey to her listener that, temporarily, he was an
outsider, at the beck and call of women, and regarded
by them as negligible.  This impression became so
strong that he knocked the ashes and half-consumed
tobacco out of a second pipe before he entered the
Dream Cottage.  The nurse was greeted by
Mrs. Biddlecombe with majestic courtesy and taken
upstairs.

Once more Quinney found himself alone.

Feeling much more hopeful, he beguiled another
hour in examining his furniture and china.  It is
worth mentioning that already he was able to discern
flaws in these precious possessions, indicating an eye
becoming more trained in its quest after perfection.
None of these household gods were regarded as
permanent.  They would be sold to make room for finer
specimens of craftsmanship.  Amongst his china, he
discovered a bogus bit.  Hitherto he had believed it
to be a fine specimen.  He was half-distressed,
half-pleased at the amazing discovery.  He had paid five
pounds for it.  The paste was all right, but the
decoration was unquestionably of a later period.  Half of
its value, actual and prospective, had vanished.
Nevertheless, the gain was enormous.  Unaided, he
had detected the false decoration, the not quite pure
quality of the gilding.

"I'm climbin'!" he muttered to himself.

As he replaced the "fake" in the cabinet, consoling
himself with the reflection that he could easily
resell it at the price he had paid, he smelt fried fish.
Extremely annoyed, he rushed into the kitchen,
where Maria was caught, red-handed, in the
astounding act of frying mackerel at six o'clock.

"What's the meaning o' this?"

Maria answered tartly:

"Meat tea for you and Mrs. Biddlecombe."

She too, ordinarily the respectful menial, dared to
glare at him, as if resenting his appearance in his own
kitchen as an unpardonable intrusion.  Quinney said
violently, not sorry to let off steam:

"What the hell d'ye mean?  Meat tea?  I eat my
supper at seven, and you know it!"

Maria tossed her head.

"You'll eat it at six to-night.  Mrs. Biddlecombe's
orders.  I shall give notice if you swear at me."

He fled—vanquished by another woman.  At the
door he fired a parting shot:

"Smells all over Melchester.  I believe that fish is
bad."

"I didn't buy it," replied Maria calmly.



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   \II

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The meat tea was served, and Mrs. Biddlecombe
joined Quinney at table.  He made no protests, but
refused to touch the mackerel.  When interrogated
he said that he disliked stale fish.

"Stale fish, Joseph!"

"Did you buy it?"

"I did."

"Did you choose it?"

Mrs. Biddlecombe's ample cheeks turned a deeper
damask.

"I did not.  I instructed the fishmonger to send
round some fresh fish."

"Thought so!" said Quinney, as he attacked the
cold beef.

Unhappily, Mrs. Biddlecombe was beguiled into
eating heartily of the mackerel, desiring to assert her
faith in its freshness and her confidence in the
fishmonger.  Conversation languished.  Presently,
Quinney jumped to his feet and raced upstairs.  He tapped
at his wife's door.  The nurse opened it, and as she
did so the husband heard a faint moan.

"You can't come in now," said the nurse.

"I'm not coming in.  You tell my wife, with my
love, not to eat any mackerel, and don't you touch
it yourself, if you want to be fit and well to-night."

He returned to the dining-room feeling, for the
first time, that he had been of practical service to
omnipotent woman!  But the faint moan had destroyed
his appetite.  He told Mrs. Biddlecombe that
he intended to walk up and down the garden.

"You'll be within call?"

"Of course.  Any notion when the doctor will be
wanted?"

"He may be wanted at any minute."

"You may want him before Susan does!"

He shut the door before the astonished lady could
reply.



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   \III

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Alone in the garden so dear to Susan, so carefully
tended by her, his torment began.  The evening was
warm, and the windows of Susan's room were thrown
wide open.  All sounds floated out into the gathering
twilight.  Quinney sat down on a bench, and listened,
palsied with misery.

The time passed.  He would walk about, and then
sit down again, lighting his pipe and letting it go out
half a dozen times before it was smoked.  Once he
ventured into the kitchen, where the sight of his face
softened Maria.  She was a spinster, but at least
twenty-five years old.  So Quinney blurted out:

"Is it always like this?"

"First time—yes," replied Maria.

Finally, Mrs. Biddlecombe descended, and bade
him fetch the doctor.  She was not an observant
woman, but even she, with her prejudices against
all males, could not fail to mark the ravages of
suffering.

"My God!" he exclaimed hoarsely.  "I didn't
know it was like this.  I've heard her!"

"I do not regret that!" replied Mrs. Biddlecombe,
not unkindly, but with emphasis.  "If I had my way
all men and all big boys, too, should know what their
mothers have suffered.  They might be kinder to them."

Dr. Ransome was fetched.  He lived near the Close,
in a comfortable red-brick house.  It seemed to
Quinney perfectly extraordinary that this man of
vast experience in suffering should be so leisurely in
his movements and speech.  However, he managed
to instil some of his confidence into the unhappy
husband, assuring him that the case presented no
untoward symptoms, and was likely to end happily
in a few hours.

A few hours!

As they passed the wicket gate Dr. Ransome
paused.

"Mr. Quinney," he said gravely, "I advise you to
go for a brisk walk.  You can do nothing more."

"But if my wife should want me?"

"She is not likely to want you.  It might make it
easier for her, if she knew you were out of the way."

"I'll sit in the dining-room," said Quinney.

He did so, casting longing eyes at the decanter of
port, sorely tempted to drink and drink till he became
drunk.  He was learning much upon this terrible
night.  Ever afterwards, when he encountered
drunkards, he forebore to condemn them, wondering
what had first driven them to seek oblivion, and
thankful that the temptation to do so had never
mastered him.

Presently the nurse joined him, and he was struck
by the change in her pleasant, capable face.  Upon
being pressed, she admitted cautiously that there
were slight complications.

Worse followed!

At midnight, Quinney was dispatched for another
doctor.  And then what he had predicted, half in
jest, came to pass.  Mrs. Biddlecombe was seized
with violent pains.  Quinney had been right about
the mackerel; and the nurse was called upon to give
undivided attention to the elder woman.  Quinney
took refuge in the kitchen, where Maria was busy
preparing hot poultices and predicting two deaths in
the house, if not three, before morning.  Never in his
short life, not even in the throes of nightmare, had
Quinney imagined any concatenation of misery
which could compare with the realities of this night.

At three in the morning, once more alone in the
dining-room, he went down on his knees.  In a wild,
unreasoning fashion, dazed by what he had
experienced, he proposed to bargain with Omnipotence.
Solemnly, he swore that he would sell no more new
oak as old, if his precious Susan was spared.  He
renounced fervently all claim to Joseph Quinney,
junior.  If choice had to be made, let the child be
taken and the mother left!

He rose from his knees somewhat comforted, so
true is it that sincere prayer, if it accomplishes
nothing else, is of real benefit to those who pray.  He
remembered the faked specimen of Early Worcester,
and his resolution to sell it at the first opportunity.
He rushed into the sitting-room, seized the cup and
saucer, and smashed them.  The violence of the action
seemed to bind the bargain between himself and the
Ruler of the Universe.  Standing erect this time, he
swore that faked china as well as faked oak was to be
eternally repudiated.  Let him perish, instead of
Susan, if he failed to keep his word!

By an odd coincidence, he had hardly registered
these vows when he realized that there was silence
upstairs.  Within a few minutes Maria poked her
head into the room to report a marked improvement
in Mrs. Biddlecombe.

"And your mistress?"

Maria shook her head.

"I know nothing about her, sir."

"Everything seems strangely quiet."

"Yes, sir; terribly so."

She dabbed at her eyes, inflamed already by much
weeping, and withdrew.  Quinney went to the foot
of the stairs, listening.  The suspense became
excruciating, harder to endure than the anguished
moaning of his wife.  He never knew afterwards how
long he remained there, but presently the door
opened and the measured tread of both doctors was
heard on the landing.  They came slowly downstairs
till they perceived Quinney.  Dr. Ransome spoke,
and his voice seemed to come from an immense
distance:

"It's all over!  Your child is born."

"Thank God!" exclaimed Quinney.  He added
tremulously: "And my poor wife?"

"She is very much exhausted.  Presently you can
go to her for a minute.  It has been a complicated
case, but we anticipate no further complications."

Quinney burst into tears.

Both doctors consoled him, taking him by the
arm, patting his shoulder, telling him that he was the
father of a robust infant, that there was no cause
whatever for unreasonable anxiety.  Not till they
were on the point of leaving the cottage did the
distracted father remember the decanter of port.

"Come in here, gentlemen, please."

They followed him into the dining-room, and three
glasses were duly charged.

"My son!" said Quinney, holding up his glass.

Dr. Ransome stared at him, then he smiled.

"Don't you know?  Didn't we tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"You are the father, my dear sir, of a ten-pound
daughter!"





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.. _`JOSEPHINA`:

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   CHAPTER VII


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   JOSEPHINA

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   \I

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He stole up to his wife's room as soon as the doctors
had gone.  The pale silvery light of early dawn
seemed to steal up with him, making the silence more
impressive and mysterious.  Upon a table on the
landing the lamp burned low.  He had been told to
expect the weak wail of the newly-born.  The nurse,
indeed, as they walked together from her cottage,
had spoken of it as the most wonderful sound in all
the world when heard by a father for the first time.
But he had not heard it.

He turned out the lamp, and noticed that his hand
was trembling.  Exercising his will, which he knew
to be strong, he endeavoured to stop this strange
twitching.  He could not do so.  Suddenly, he became
conscious of an immense weariness; hie limbs ached;
his head was throbbing; he felt like an overtired
child.  It even occurred to him that it would be not
altogether unpleasant to cry himself to sleep.  An
odd fear of seeing Susan gripped him.  What did she
look like after the rigours of this awful night?  Was
she lying insensible?  Would she know him?  Would
he break down before her, when he beheld the cruel
ravages of intense pain?  For her sake he must pull
himself together.

Thereupon a struggle for the mastery took place
between spirit and flesh.  He was not able to analyse
his emotions, but he divined somehow that this was
his labour, that something was being born out of him,
wrenched from his very vitals, a new self with a
brighter intelligence, a more vigorous sympathy.
The pains of the spirit were upon him.  Presently an
idea emerged; the conception which must take place
in every human soul, the quickening of a transcendent
conviction that pain is inevitable and inseparable
from growth.  It would be absurd to contend that
his writhing thoughts could twist themselves into the
form to which expression has been given here.  He
was very young, and, apart from a special knowledge
of his business, extremely ignorant; but it was
revealed to him at this moment, a babe and suckling
in such matters, that something had happened to
him, that he could never be the same again.  Fatherhood,
and, all it implied, had been paid for with tears
and agony.

The door of Susan's room opened.

He saw the nurse, who beckoned.  Her face had
become normal; she smiled gravely, as he passed
her, and she closed the door softly, leaving husband
and wife together.

His first impression was that the room smelled very
sweet, filled with the fragrance of the flowers in the
garden.  The windows remained wide open.  The
light was stronger than on the landing, but soft, for
the sun had not yet risen.  Everything was in order.
The habit of swift observation enabled him to grasp
all this in a flash, although, so far as he knew, his
eyes were fixed upon the bed.  Susan lay upon her
side of it.  Her face was milk-white, with purple lines
beneath eyes which seemed unduly sunken.  Her
pretty hair, done in two plaits, framed her face.  To
Quinney she looked exactly like a child who had been
frightfully ill.  It was impossible to think of her as a
mother.  Nor did he do so.  He had forgotten the
baby altogether, his mind was concentrated upon the
Susan whom he loved, upon the Susan who appeared
to have returned from a long journey into an
unknown land, a new and strange Susan, for her lips
never smiled at him, but in her tender eyes he
recognized his wife, his own little woman, his most
priceless possession, the soul of her shone steadily out of
those eyes acclaiming his soul as he acclaimed hers.

When he kissed her, she sighed.  He slipped his
hand beneath the bedclothes, and took her hand,
murmuring her name again and again.  She did not
speak, and he did not wish her to speak.  Her silence
implied far more than speech.

He felt the faint pressure of her hand, so small and
weak within his grasp.  Then he laid his head upon
her bosom.  He could just hear her heart, beating
slowly and feebly.  He lifted his head, putting his
cheek against hers.  She sighed again—deliciously!
He tried to believe that his strength, which seemed to
have returned on a spring-tide of irresistible volume,
could be infused into her.  And it may have been so,
for presently she spoke, the words fluttering from her
pale lips.

"You are not very disappointed?"

Disappointed!

He reassured her upon that point, so overmasteringly
that she smiled, and the pressure of her hand
became stronger.

The nurse appeared, beckoning once more.  Quinney
followed her obediently into the adjoining room,
where an object that looked like a wrinkled orange
was affirmed to be his daughter's head!  Obviously
the nurse expected him to kiss this; and he did so
without any uplifting exultation, without a single
compensating thrill!  It occurred to him vaguely
that Susan and he had paid a thumping price for
very little.  He was shown a hand like the hand
of an anæmic doll.  Into the tiny palm he slipped,
cautiously, his forefinger.  To his amazement, the
finger was gripped unmistakably.

"Well, I'm damned!" he exclaimed.  As the nurse
raised her eyebrows in silent protest, he added quickly:
"I've been swearing all night; one more little one
don't count!"

The nurse glanced professionally at his haggard
face and dishevelled hair.

"You go to bed at once!" she commanded.

He did so.



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   \II

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Susan's recovery from her confinement was slow
but unattended, as the doctor had predicted, by
complications.  She was able, happily, to nurse her
child, but for many months she remained in cotton
wool at the Dream Cottage, recruiting her energies
in the pleasant garden, and rarely straying beyond
it.  The question of her returning to the shop was
settled drastically.

"Who'll take care of the kid?  Wouldn't leave
her to a nursemaid, would you?

"N-n-no," faltered Susan, feeling more wife than
mother.  She qualified the doubtful negative by
murmuring: "I did love helping you."

"Lord bless you!  You're helping me at home—a
woman's right place.  It's the biggest help a woman
can give to a man.  You run things fine!  Yes, you
do!"—for she had shaken her head.  "And the kid
has the very best nurse in all the world!  Shop,
indeed!  I don't want my wife demeaning herself in
a shop!"

He snorted with indignation, and Susan, with a
suppressed sigh, let the subject drop for ever.

Meanwhile he had told her of his solemn oath,
which made a profound impression upon a sensitive
mind and conscience.  The immediate consequence,
however, of a determination to renounce false gods
was absolutely unforeseen.  Two days after the birth
of the baby, when the shattered little mother was
still lying between life and death, Quinney distracted
his mind by putting on one side every doubtful piece
of *vertu* in his possession, repricing faithfully, even at
a loss to himself, each particular fake.  He was
engrossed in this very uncongenial task—for the old
Adam was merely dazed and not dead within him—when
the Marquess of Mel entered the shop.  He had
heard from Dr. Ransome a racy and humorous
account of Quinney under stress, and had been much
moved thereby.  As a grand seigneur of the old school
he deemed it a duty to call upon so remarkable a
tenant, and if necessary, hearten him up by the
purchase of a bit of furniture or china.  Heretofore, the
Quinneys, father and son, had dealt with the magnate's
agent.  Lord Mel, so far as he knew, had never
exchanged a single word with the son of a man whom
he accounted an old rascal.

Quinney received him without betraying any awe
of his rank, listening respectfully to his landlord's
felicitations.  He loved a lord, as all true Britons do
and must, but he had not yet recovered from a
tremendous shock, and his thoughts were entirely
centred upon Susan.  When Lord Mel paused, Quinney replied:

"She's not out of the wood yet, my lord."

"I know how you feel—I have been through it.
And now show me over your premises.  The Bishop
tells me that you have some fine porcelain."

"I've a lot of poor stuff, too!" grumbled Quinney.

Lord Mel smiled.  He enjoyed what he called
"browsing" in curiosity shops, but he had never
heard so candid an admission before.  He was still
more surprised at what followed.  His own taste
strayed pleasantly in the eighteenth century, and he
was not aware, of course, that this was Quinney's
beloved period.  Nor did he know that the saloon at
Mel Court was nearly as familiar to Quinney as to
himself.  At first his attention was challenged by the
faked oak.  The panels were really beautiful, and
inasmuch as they had deceived Quinney himself, it
is not very remarkable that they imposed themselves
upon an amateur.

"Have you much of this oak?" he asked.

"Any amount of it!"

"Enough to panel a room?"

"Yes, I think so."

"What will you take for the lot?  It happens that
I can use it at Mel Court.  I am building a new billiard
room, and my lady is rather tired of mahogany."

Quinney's keen eyes sparkled.  Lord Mel was too
big a swell to bargain, and he was obviously not a
"think-it-over fellow."  He would pay, cheerfully,
a big price for these panels and, as likely as not, ask
no questions about them.  Then he thought of Susan,
white and helpless in the big bed.  With a tremendous
effort, and speaking abruptly, as man to man, he
said:

"It's all faked stuff."

"What!  Impossible!"

"I can sell the lot, my lord, at a price that
will surprise you."  He named the price, which
included a modest profit to himself, wondering what
Tomlin would say when he heard the story.  Tomlin,
of course, owned an undivided half-interest in the
panels.  Lord Mel was astounded.  He bought the
panels, and stared at Quinney's whimsical face.

"The price does surprise me," he admitted.

"Perfectly wonderful!" said Quinney.  "The
real stuff—if you could have found such a
quantity—would have run into a couple of thousand."

"But, pardon me, aren't you doing business upon
rather a novel plan?"

"That's as may be, my lord.  I propose to keep
the very best fakes and to label 'em as such.  I have
the genuine stuff, too.  Take Oriental china.  Look
at those jars!"

He was fairly started, aglow with excitement and
enthusiasm, oblivious of himself and his visitor,
pouring out a flow of intimate information,
unconsciously displaying himself rather than his wares,
forcing his queer personality upon a man of the
world, a connoisseur of men as well as porcelain.
Inevitably, his genius—long afterwards recognized
as such—for beauty challenged the attention of his
listener—himself a lover of beauty.  They met as
equals upon the common ground of similar tastes.
Quinney let himself go.  In his perfervid excitement
he gestured as he did before Susan; the floor was
strewn with aitches; grammar halted feebly behind
his impassioned sentences.  There were things, lots
o' things, that were just right—perfection; and one
of 'em—one bloomin' bit o' real stuff, one tiny cup,
potted by a master, painted by an artist, gilded by
an honest man who used the purest gold, twenty-two
carat, by Gum!—was worth all the beastly rubbish
in the world.  He ended upon the familiar note.

"I hate rubbish!  Rubbish is wicked, rubbish is
cruel, rubbish poisons the world.  I was brought up
amongst it, and that's why I loathe it and fear it."

When he finished Lord Mel held out his hand.

"Mr. Quinney," he said simply, "I am happy to
make your acquaintance; you are building even
better than you know."

It is quite impossible to exaggerate the results
that flowed directly and indirectly from this
memorable interview.  In the first place, Quinney secured
a patron and friend who was all-powerful in a large
county.  Lord Mel kept open house; he entertained
the greatest men in the kingdom.  He sent his guests
to the man whom he affirmed positively to be the
only honest dealer that he knew; he brought experts
to whom Quinney listened feverishly, sucking their
special knowledge from them, as a greedy child sucks
an orange.  He allowed our hero access to his own
collections, permitted him to make an inventory of
them, and later discarded upon his advice certain
questionable specimens.  In a word, this
oddly-assorted couple became friends, comrades, in their
indefatigable quest for beautiful objects.  It was
Lord Mel who dispatched Quinney to Ireland—one
of his richest hunting grounds.  In Ireland Quinney
fell passionately in love with old cut-glass, at a time
when the commercial demand for it was almost
negligible.  In fine, Lord Mel discovered Quinney
and trained him to discover himself.



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   \III

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Picture to yourself Tomlin's amazement and disgust
when he paid his next visit to the ancient town
some three weeks after the sale of the panels.  And it
must be admitted that he had reason for complaint,
and that his first comment upon Quinney's astounding
proceedings was justified.

"You don't seem to have thought of me!"

"I didn't," said Quinney, with admirable simplicity.

"I told you about that fellow in Brittany; I sent
you to him; I provided half the cash, and I was
counting upon big profits.  You've let me down badly."

"Looks like it, to be sure!"

"Damned outrage, I call it!"

"So it is; but I was desperate.  Susan was dying.
I never thought of you at all.  Now, look here!
Don't overheat yourself!  You was counting upon a
fifty per cent. profit."

"Perhaps more."

"You do like to get your fore-feet into the trough.
Any Jew blood in your family?  Keep cool!  At
first we got our big profit, and how much stuff did
we sell?  Very little.  Now I've orders coming in
faster than I can fill 'em, and your profit, small and
quick, will knock endways the big and slow.  See?"

Eventually he made Tomlin see, and the London
dealer had to admit that Lord Mel, played by
Quinney as a trump card, introduced a new element
into the game.  The orders were coming in.

"It's silly to be dishonest," said Quinney, "because
sooner or later a feller is found out."

"Honest fakes," murmured Tomlin.  The
contradiction in terms upset him.

"That's it.  And my fakes are goin' to be advertised
as the best in the world—really fine stuff, at a
price which'll defy competition."

"You're an extraordinary man, Joe.  There is
something in it.  Honest fakes!"

"Rub this in as vaseline, old man.  If we can sell
honest fakes cheap, we can sell the real Simon pure
stuff at the top notch.  Rich people don't haggle
over a few extra pounds if they know that they're
not being imposed upon.  I'm going to offer to take
back any bit I sell as genuine which may be
pronounced doubtful by the experts."

Tomlin shook his head mournfully, having no
exalted faith in experts.  Also, he, was beginning to
realize that Quinneys' as a sort of dumping-ground
for his surplus and inferior wares was now under a
high protective tariff.  He growled out:

"If you think you know your own business——"

"Cocksure of it, old man!"

"I can only hope that Pride won't have a fall."

"You come with me and drink my daughter's
health.  Never saw such a kid in all my life—and
not a month old!"

Tomlin grinned, perceiving an opportunity of
"landing" heavily.

"Daughter?  Rather muddled things, haven't
you?  Thought you'd arranged with your missis
that it was to be a boy?"

"Did you?  Well, being a better husband than
you are, I let her 'ave her own way in that."



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   \IV

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The daughter was duly christened Josephina
Biddlecombe, and, for the purposes of this
narrative, we may skip a number of pet names, beginning
with Baby and ending with Josie-posie.  Ultimately
she was called Posy and nothing else—a rechristening
that took place in the distinguished presence of
the Bishop of Melchester.  The child was nearly
three years old when that courtly prelate happened
to drift into the shop.  Susan and the child had
entered a few minutes before.

"And what is your name, my dear?" he asked.

"Josie-posie," she replied demurely.  Even at
that early age Quinney's daughter was absolutely
devoid of fear or shyness.  She added confidingly:
"And I wear a macheese."

"What does she wear?" asked the Bishop of Susan.

Susan blushed.

"She means a—chemise, my lord."

The Bishop laughed heartily, inferring that
hitherto she had worn some other garment.  Then he said
in his pleasant voice: "Josie-posie is too big a name
for so tiny a maid.  I like the second half of it better
than the first."

"So do I," said Susan.

"Yes, yes; Posy is a sweet, old-fashioned name,
and it describes the child admirably."

When he had taken leave of them, Quinney said
with conviction:

"He's right.  Posy she is, the little dear!  And
his lordship didn't fail to notice, I'll be bound, that
she smells as sweet as she looks."

After this incident the child was always called
Posy.

It is not easy to describe the sprite, because she
presented a baffling combination of father and
mother.  Her native grace, her pretty colouring and
delicate features, were a sweet inheritance from
Susan; her quickness of wit, her powers of observation,
her unmistakable sense of beauty—for she
shrank tremblingly from what was mean or ugly—came
from Quinney.  Essentially she was a child of
love, adored by both her parents, and, up to a certain
point, spoiled by them.  Mrs. Biddlecombe was
fondly of the opinion that the child had taken from
her parents what was best in each, buttressing the
assertion by calling attention to the dash of red in
the golden locks, and the peculiar alertness of the
mite's glance flashing hither and thither, searching
for the things which delighted her, and acclaiming
them when found with joyous chirruping and gestures.

"Reg'lar butterfly!" said Quinney.  "Dotty
about flowers!  Picks out the best, by Gum!"

The first three years passed without incident.  The
business prospered.  Quinney engaged a capable
assistant, and began his travels.  His restlessness
affected Susan, but she accepted it resignedly.  He
was different from other men and not to be judged
by ordinary standards.  Argument was wasted upon
him.  She expostulated vainly when he began to
change the furniture.  The knowledge that each bit
was more valuable and beautiful than its predecessor
did not appeal to her at all.  She beguiled
him into talking about his business, feigning interest
in its growth, but became increasingly conscious that
the details bored her.  The Dream Cottage, as she
had pictured it, faded from memory.  It had
become a sort of small pantechnicon, a storehouse
of precious objects which came and went, an annexe
to the shop, to be kept swept and garnished for the
entertainment and instruction of collectors.

The garden, however, was her peculiar domain,
diffusing its own satisfactions and graces.  The
kitchen and nursery were hers also.  She was an
excellent housewife, and made Posy's frocks, and
some of her own, despite the protests of Quinney,
who babbled foolishly of satins and brocades.

Undaunted by her awful experience, she hoped for
another child.  Upon this point Mrs. Biddlecombe
had something to say.

"I was an only child, you was an only child, your
grandfather was an only child.  It's in the family.
After what you went through——"

"Joe would like a son, mother."

"Has he hinted that to you?"

"No."

"You take it from me that he doesn't."

To Susan's astonishment, Joe confirmed what had
seemed a ridiculous assumption.  After Josephina
was weaned, Susan whispered to him one night:

"I do miss my baby."

"Enjoyed bein' woke up—hey?"

"Yes."

"Like another, perhaps?"  She detected the
scorn in his voice.

"If—if you wanted it, Joe.  A little son this
time."

He caught hold of her, speaking vehemently,
crushing her to him, as if to remind her how nearly
she had slipped from his keeping.

"Now look here, Susie, I ain't going to have
another."

She laughed faintly, as she replied:

"It isn't you who will have it.  Mother says she
wishes that the men could take turn and turn about."

"Ho!  Said that, did she?  You tell her from me
that I suffered quite enough with my first.  Enough
to last me all my life, and yours, too!"

Susan shook with laughter.

"Oh, Joe, you are a darling!"

"Silly name to call me!  Red-headed and freckled!
But no more nonsense about little sons.  When my
daughter marries, her husband can take my name.  See?"

"I see," said Susan; "but I'm afraid baby's
husband may not."

At the end of three years, a small cloud arose in
their clear sky.  Mrs. Biddlecombe announced
solemnly that she was seriously ill, and about to
meet her Maker.





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.. _`LIGHT OUT OF THE DARKNESS`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


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   LIGHT OUT OF THE DARKNESS

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   \I

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When Mrs. Biddlecombe made this solemn declaration
it never occurred to either Quinney or Susan to
dispute the infallibility of such a statement.  The
worthy lady belonged to a type rapidly becoming
extinct in this country, a type which has provoked the
astonishment and humorous criticism of foreigners.
She had never questioned what she devoutly held to
be certain divinely-revealed truths.  Persons who
presumed to differ from her, or perhaps it would be
fairer to say, from the indiscriminate mass of public
opinion which she represented, were accounted
beyond the pale of Christian charity and toleration,
*tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner* being an arrow
which glances harmlessly against prejudice and
predilection.  There was no joint in her armour of
righteousness through which it could penetrate.  The
type is still so common that comment upon it would
be tedious.  Amongst other cherished beliefs was a
conviction that illness came direct from God.  Had
Susan, as a child, been struck down with typhoid
fever, Mrs. Biddlecombe would have accepted the
blow with resignation and tended the sufferer, under
the direction of a medical attendant, with exemplary
tenderness and fortitude.  She would not have
overhauled the system of drainage.  Accordingly, when
the Hand of Providence—as she put it—was laid
heavily upon her massive body, she accepted the
infirmity with pious resignation, and informed
Laburnum Row that it was the beginning of the end.
Dr. Ransome diagnosed the case, accurately enough,
as cardiac weakness arising from chronic dyspepsia.
His patient was of a full habit, and took no exercise
beyond the common round of duties connected with
her small house.  A competent servant "did" for
her, perhaps in more senses than one.  Ransome, of
course, reassured her again and again in regard to
her symptoms.  They were such as could not be
ignored at her age—fifty-five—but with care and a
less generous diet she might reasonably hope to live
happily for many years.  Mrs. Biddlecombe refused
to believe this.  She made her will, leaving everything
she possessed to Susan, selected her last resting-place
in the Melchester cemetery, not too near the
grave of her second husband, the contractor and
builder, and announced calmly that she was
"ready."  Quinney, of course, had a private word with
Dr. Ransome, but that cautious diplomat had to admit
that his patient might go suddenly.  Quinney told
Susan what had passed between them, using his own
vernacular.

"Old Pomposity is hedgin'—see?  Just like him!
Comes to this, Susie.  You was at death's door,
seemin'ly, but, by Gum! you pulled through because
you wouldn't leave me!"

Susan nodded, pressing his arm.

"Works t'other way round with your mother.
She's made up her mind to die, and the doctor can't
argue her out of the notion.  Her heart is weak, and
if it begins flutterin' it may stop for ever just because
the pore old dear won't will it to go on wigglin'.
There y'are!"

Susan was much upset.  She loved her mother,
although the two women had little in common, and
the feminine instinct of ministration, root-pruned by
her husband, began to sprout vigorously.  She paid
long daily visits to Laburnum Row, and Quinney
soon noticed a falling off in the quality of his food.
Twice they were summoned in the middle of the
night to say good-bye to a woman who believed
herself to be dying.

"A bit thick!" said Quinney.

"Joe!"

"But, isn't it?  Let's face the facts.  You spend
a lot o' time away from home, away from Posy.
Losin' your nice fresh colour, you are!  And I'm
losin' my appetite for the good meals I used to
have."

"But mother wants me.  And any moment——"

"So she thinks.  Quite likely to make old bones
yet.  Now, look here, I've a plan—the only plan.
I simply won't have you trapesin' round to Laburnum
Row at all hours of the day and night.  Tell your
mother to pack up and come to us."

Alas! poor Susan!

She was hoist with her own petard.  Protest died
on her lips.  She submitted, not daring to confess
that a dying mother could be regarded by a dutiful
daughter as an unwelcome visitor.

Mrs. Biddlecombe, however, refused, at first, to
budge.  "Let me die here, Joseph."  Quinney used
the clinching argument.

"You are not going to die, Mrs. B., but, if you did,
just think of the sad job we'd have gettin' you down
them narrow stairs.  And we never could receive all
your friends in such a small parlour."

"That's true," sighed Mrs. Biddlecombe.  "There's
a lot in what you say, Joseph."

"There is, old dear!  I'm uneducated, and I know
it, but my talk is full o' meat and gravy.  It's
nourishing!"

Accordingly, Mrs. Biddlecombe came to the Dream
Cottage, and was installed comfortably in the guest
chamber.  As time passed, the good lady grew to like
her room so well that she refused to leave it.  She
became, in short, bedridden, and increasingly
dependent upon Susan, who never failed her.  Quinney
began to spend his evenings away from home.  He
joined a club which met bi-weekly in a snug room at
the Mitre.  Susan encouraged him to join his friends,
because she was terrified lest he should be bored at
home.  Also, his wanderings in search of furniture
and china became more extended, and when he returned
triumphant, exulting in wonderful bargains,
she found it increasingly difficult to share his enthusiasm,
and to rejoice with him over a prosperity which
seemed to be driving them farther apart.

She told herself, on her knees, that she was a
wicked, ungrateful woman.  Indeed, she was amazed
at her own emotions, unable to analyse them,
conscious only that she was torn in two by circumstance
and consequence.  Her Joe loved her faithfully; he
grudged her nothing; he worked hard for her and
his child; he had none of the vices common to the
husbands of many women she knew; he was almost
always in high health and spirits.  And Posy?
What a darling!  No cause for anxiety there.  A
sweet sprite, budding rapidly into a pretty, intelligent
girl.  And she herself?  Healthy, the mistress
of a charming little house filled with beautiful things,
but not happy.

Why—why—why?

Civil war raged beneath her placid bosom.  War
to the knife between conjugal and maternal instincts.
Her duty to child and mother stood between what she
desired more passionately than anything else—a
renewal of intimate intercourse with a husband who
was drifting out of her life, leaving her stranded upon
barren rocks.  She found herself wondering whether
his feeling for her was waxing lukewarm.  She would
cheerfully have undergone the cruellest pangs to
experience once more the ineffable bliss of kissing
tears from his eyes, of hearing his voice break when
he whispered her name, of knowing that he suffered
abominably because she suffered.

She began to pray for something to break the
deadly monotony of her life.

And her prayers were answered.



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Quinney was returning one night from the club
soberly conscious that he had slightly exceeded his
usual allowance of port wine.  He was in that mellow
frame of mind, far removed from intoxication, which
dwells complacently upon the present without any
qualms as to the future.  For instance, despite the
extra glass or two, he knew that he would awaken the
next morning with a clear brain and a body fit to
cope with any imposed task.  In fine, he was sober
enough to congratulate himself upon the self-control
which had refused further indulgence, and at the
same time righteously glad that he had not drunk
less.  The colour of the good wine encarmined
his thoughts, the bottled sunshine irradiated his
soul.

He passed slowly through the Cathedral Close,
pausing to admire the spire soaring into a starlit sky,
black against violet.  He had left the Mitre at
half-past eleven, but few lights twinkled from the windows
of the houses encircling the Close.  The good canons
retired early and rose rather late, thereby, perhaps,
securing health without being encumbered with the
burden of wisdom.  With rare exception all Melchester
slumbered.

Quinney, out of native obstinacy, felt astoundingly
awake.  He began to compute the hours wasted in
sleep.  He had quaint theories on this subject, which
he aired at the club.  It has been said that party
politics left him cold, although he grew warm and
excited over his own ideas.  The Tories assured him
that England was going behind, but their reasons,
taken from pamphlets and newspapers, were
unconvincing, if you happened to read—as Quinney
did—the Radical counter-blasts.  Ever since his
memorable trip to France Quinney posed as the travelled
man.  The French, he contended, were prosperous
because they saved money and time.  They rose
earlier, worked harder for more hours out of the
twenty-four.  Also, he had been much impressed by
the French Sunday as a day of recreation as well as
rest.  The French did not need a half-holiday on
Saturday, because they made a whole holiday of
Sunday.  Susan was appalled at this view, but Quinney
used the argument with telling effect at the club.
Pinker, the Radical grocer, was immensely taken
with it.  If cricket and football could be played on
Sunday the British workman would earn another half-day's
pay.  Multiply that by millions, and there you are!

He strolled on to the Mel, and paused again, staring
at that placid stream rolling so leisurely to the sea.
He was rolling as leisurely to—what?  The question
caught at him, insistently demanding an answer.  He
realized, almost with a shock, that nearly seven
years had passed since he married Susan.  During
that seven years he had doubled his capital.  He was
worth twenty thousand pounds at least, probably
more, and his best years were yet to come.
Mrs. Biddlecombe, it is true, was not so sanguine.
According to her, prosperity in the present indicated
adversity in the near future.

"Joseph's luck will turn," she would say to Susan
in her husband's presence.  Finally, Quinney retorted
with some heat:

"Now, Granny, don't you go on barkin' your old
knuckles over that.  I ain't superstitious, but long ago
I had 'arf-a-crown's worth o' fortune-tellin' from the
Queen o' the Gipsies herself.  I'm to live to be
seventy-six, and to bend the knee to my Sovereign."

"What did the foolish woman mean by that?"

"A queen, I tell you.  She meant knighthood.
Sir Joseph and Lady Quinney!  What ho!"

"Sir Humpty and Lady Dumpty more like!"

Perhaps the tart answer had spurred him to greater
endeavour.  He was extremely sensitive under a skin
toughened by paternal thwackings, and well aware
that his mother-in-law was inclined to sniff whenever
his name was mentioned.  The poor old dear was a
bit jealous!  She had fallen in the social scale; he
was rising, soaring into the blue, like the great spire
of Melchester Cathedral.

During the past seven years he had hugged close
his intention of leaving Melchester for the wider
sphere of London.  The fact that Tomlin, Susan, and
Mrs. Biddlecombe were obstinately opposed to such
a leap into the unknown merely fortified his
resolution.  Tomlin, of course, nosed a rival, for some of
his customers knew Quinney.  Susan hinted that
Posy would lose her bloom in London streets.
Mrs. Biddlecombe pointed out, with businesslike acumen,
that he and his father had built up a big and
increasing country connection which would be greedily
snapped up by some Melchester dealer.  And, lastly,
the mighty Marquess of Mel had uttered a word of
warning:

"It would mean a big fight.  You are not in the
ring, my dear fellow."

Whenever his kind patron addressed him as a dear
fellow Quinney's blood warmed within him.  And his
keen eyes sparkled at the prospect of a fight.  He
liked fights.  As a boy he had fought to a finish other
boys bigger than himself; and the victory had not
invariably been with them.  He remembered his
victories, as he answered Lord Mel:

"I should get into the ring, my lord."

"Um!  Would you!  And"—his landlord laughed
pleasantly—"I should lose a good tenant."

"London's the best market for knowledge," said
Quinney.

"Quite, quite!  Can you attempt to compete with
the experts?"

The question rankled, biting deep into his soul,
inciting him to further study of the things he loved.
But such study grew more and more difficult.  He
had become the expert of Melchester.  On and about
his own "pitch" it was impossible to find a man with
more technical knowledge than his own.  In London,
he would be rubbing shoulders with world-famous
collectors and connoisseurs.  They would "down"
him at first, rub his nose in the dust of the big auction
rooms; but in the end he would learn what they had
learned, and triumph where they had triumphed.



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These thoughts were trickling through his mind as
he gazed at the placid Mel trickling also to troublous
seas, where its clear waters would be merged and
lost.  Quinney squirmed at the remote possibility of
being merged and lost.  He muttered uneasily: "It
fair furs my tongue to think o' that."  The extra
glass of wine had not excited him to the consideration
of perilous enterprises.  An extra pint might
have done so.  No; the old port which had ripened
in the Melchester cellars exercised a benignant and
restful influence.  Its spirit, released at last, seemed
to hover about the ancient town, loath to leave it.
We may hazard the conjecture that the wine in the
cellars of our universities may be potent to lull the
ambitions of restless scholars, and to keep them
willing prisoners in drowsy quadrangles.

Quinney lighted his pipe.  He felt ripe for an
important decision.  For some months the necessity of
enlarging his present premises had bulked large in his
thoughts.  A successful country dealer must carry an
immense amount of stock, because he dare not
specialize.  His hatred for rubbish had become an
obsession.  More, his love of the finest specimens of
furniture and porcelain interfered with the sale of
them.  He placed a price on these which eventually
he got, but often he was constrained to wait so long
for the right customer that his profit was seriously
diminished.  He sold quickly immense lines of
moderately-priced "stuff"—chairs, tables, chests of
drawers, bureaux, bookcases, bedsteads, and
mantel-pieces.  The "gems," as he called them, were taken
to the Dream Cottage, and only shown to the worthy few.

To enlarge his premises was no ha'penny affair.
Lord Mel, it is true, had offered to do so, but only on
the condition that his tenant should sign a long lease;
and a long lease meant remaining in Melchester.
Ten, twenty years hence, he would be too old to begin
again in London.

He smoked his pipe much too quickly.

To be candid, he was struggling desperately with
the twin brethren, who, whether good or bad, accompany
each of us from the cradle to the grave.  He was
at grips with heredity and environment.  Afterwards
he admitted to himself and to Susan that two would
have prevailed over one.  He made up his mind to
write to Lord Mel's agent on the morrow, and he
consoled himself with the sound reflection that he was
grasping substance, not shadow.  London might ruin
him—he knew that, being no fool—and yet he was in
the mood to shed tears upon the grave of ambition.
Never, never, would he bend the knee before his
Sovereign if he remained in Melchester!

He sighed profoundly as he slipped his pipe into
his pocket.  By this time he was lucidly himself.
The decision to enlarge his premises, and all that
meant, would not be weakened, but strengthened, by
a night's sleep.  Sleep!  He smiled derisively.  Sleep!
Everybody in Melchester was asleep.  He beheld himself
and Susan growing fat in this sleepy town.  Susan
was already plumper.  She would develop into just
such a fleshly tabernacle as her mother.

He exclaimed loudly and virulently:

"Damn!"

This was his acknowledgment of defeat.  His
"Vae victis."  He writhed impotently in the toils of
circumstance, although the struggle was over.  The
night seemed to have turned darker, the stars paled
in the violet sky, as he walked slowly towards the
Dream Cottage, wherein his wonderful dream would
never come true.  One would like to record that
thoughts of his pretty, loving wife, and thoughts of
his Posy—admittedly the gem of gems—stirred
within him, pouring spikenard upon his lacerated
sensibilities.  It was not so.  They stood for poppy,
and mandragora, or, as he might have put it, old
port and brown sherry in cut-glass decanters.  And
every fibre of his small, sturdy body clamoured for a
fight in the London ring, a fight to a finish with the
experts of his trade.

At that dark moment he beheld light.



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The light came from Dream Cottage—a faint
luminous glow, so strange, so mysterious, that he
stood still, straining his eyes to determine the
meaning of it till that meaning flared full upon him.

One of the chimneys was ablaze!

Instantly his dormant energies awoke to liveliest
activity.  He raced back to a corner of the Close,
where he had passed a policeman.  The man had
wandered farther on his beat.  He overtook him,
gasping.

"My house is afire!"

The policeman recognized Quinney, and nodded
owlishly.

"Your house afire?" he repeated.

"You bolt for the engine—see?"

He twirled round the massive figure, and pushed it
vigorously.  The guardian of the night broke into a
slow trot.  Quinney shouted:

"Get a move on!" and sped back to the cottage.
The light was no longer faintly luminous.  Flames—hungry
tongues of destruction—were licking the darkness.





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   CHAPTER IX


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Quinney found Susan asleep.  In the small dressing
room next to their bedroom, Posy also slumbered
sweetly, although acrid smoke was filling the house.
When Susan understood that she was not the victim
of some hideous nightmare, Quinney imposed his
commands.

"You've time to slip on warm clothes.  Bolt on to
the lawn with Posy.  Don't try to save any of your
rags.  I'll wake Maria—and then I've a lot to do.
The best stuff downstairs is not insured.  The engine
will be here in two jiffs.  You scoot out o' this!
Hear me?"

She nodded breathlessly, swept off her feet by his
excitement.  He vanished, before she could answer
him or remind him of a bedridden mother-in-law.

Maria also was asleep.  Quinney hauled her out of
bed, and pointed to the attic window.

"Look at that," he said grimly, "and scoot!"

Maria scooted.

Quinney leapt downstairs, cursing himself for a
fool inasmuch as he had neglected to increase his
insurance.  The "gems" had slowly accumulated
month after month.  He breathed more easily when
he reached the ground floor, but he was well aware
that the old house would burn like tinder.  The roof
of thatch had begun to blaze; he could hear the
crackle of the flames overhead.

With profound regret it must be set down that he
had quite forgotten Mrs. Biddlecombe.

He worked methodically, beginning with the
uninsured porcelain, the Worcester, Chelsea, and Bow,
which he carried tenderly into the garden.  He had
removed the most valuable specimens before the
engine arrived.  Maria, stout creature, half-dressed,
bare-legged and bare-footed, joined him.  Together
they hauled out the Chippendale chairs and china
cupboard.

"Seen your missus?" asked Quinney, when she
first appeared.

"On the lawn," replied Maria.

Presently they heard the welcome rattle of the
engine, and the Chief strode in, followed by two
firemen.

"Women all out?" he asked.

"You bet!" replied Quinney.  At that moment
he remembered Mrs. Biddlecombe.  "My God!" he
exclaimed, gripping the Chief.  "There's Mrs. Biddlecombe!
Bedridden, by Gum!"

Maria burst into the riotous laughter of a Bacchante.

"The old lady," she spluttered, "was the first to
scoot.  She just ran out like I did."

"Ran?" repeated Quinney.

"Like a rabbit!" said Maria, more calmly.

"We've about five more minutes," remarked the
Chief.

During that brief period wonders were accomplished;
but at the very last Quinney narrowly
escaped death in his determination to save a print
in colour which he had overlooked.  A fireman
grabbed him and held him as the roof fell.



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Kindly neighbours sheltered the women for that
night, while Quinney mounted guard over his
furniture and porcelain.  He never left his precious
things till they were safely stored in a warehouse.
When his fellow-townsmen condoled with him he
laughed in their solemn faces.  The sense of freedom
which had so expanded his spirit upon the
never-to-be-forgotten occasion of his sire's funeral once more
possessed him.  The fire had burnt to cinders the
resolution to remain in Melchester.  He found
himself wishing that the shop had burned too.  What a
glorious clearance that would have been, to be sure!
Nevertheless, the sight of Susan's face dampened
his rejoicings.  Obviously, she had swooped upon
the truth.  Mrs. Biddlecombe had been forgotten,
left to frizzle, while a madman, at the risk of his life,
was rescuing sticks and stones!

"You never thought of mother," said Susan.
The small woman looked rather pale, and Quinney
marked for the first time the wrinkle between her
eyes.  Mrs. Biddlecombe had the same vertical line,
deeply cut.  Also there was an inflection in Susan's
voice which he recognized regretfully as an inheritance
from the old lady.  He was tempted to lie
boldly, to affirm with loud authority that he had
left the care of the invalid mother to a devoted
daughter.  Fortunately, he remembered the
Bacchanalian laughter of Maria.  The baggage had
peached.  He replied simply:

"I didn't."

Susan compressed her pretty lips, and the
likeness to her mother became startlingly strong.

Quinney tried a disarming smile as he murmured:

"She legged it out on to the lawn.  Maria says
she ran like a bloomin' rabbit."

"If Maria said that I shall have to speak to her
seriously."

"She didn't say 'blooming.'  I'm sorry, Susie.
It's awful, I know, but you needn't glare at me as if
I'd left the old lady to burn on purpose.  And out of
evil comes good—hey?  We know now that she's as
spry as ever.  Almost looks as if firin' had cured her."

"If you mean to make a joke of it——"

He saw that she was deeply offended, and foolishly
attempted to kiss her.  Susan repulsed him.

"What!  Refuse to kiss your own hubby!"

"Mother might be lying dead; and you thinking
only of sticks and stones."

"Come off it!" said Quinney irritably.

Susan turned her back on him, and he returned to
the shop.  It was their first serious trouble.



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When they met again two hours afterwards the
wrinkle had vanished; and no allusion was made to
this unhappy incident, either then or later.  Susan
was busy moving into temporary lodgings and buying
necessary articles of clothing for herself and her
mother.  Quinney was thinking of London, and
fairly spoiling for the fight ahead.  It would begin
when he tackled Susan and her mother, and he knew
that this first encounter would be no bloodless
victory.  Posy would be used as a weapon, an
Excalibur in the hands of a devoted mother.

After much pondering, he did an unwise
thing—what might have been expected from a man
engrossed in his own business, and fully sensible that
he understood that business better than anyone else.
He had always despised futile argument.
Mrs. Biddlecombe and Susan would argue for hours,
repeating themselves like silly parrots, and evading,
like most women, the real issues.  He told himself
that he would be quite unable to listen patiently
to their prattle about country air and old friends,
and rolling stones denuded of nice comfortable moss.
Why not make his arrangements without consulting
them?  Whatever they might say, he intended to
move from Melchester.  He had nailed his flag to the
mast when the roof of Dream Cottage fell in.  It
streamed over his future, a Blue Peter.

Accordingly, he slipped away to London some
two days later, leaving two women and an intelligent
child in blissful ignorance of what was waving above
them.  He told Susan that an interview with the
fire insurance people was imperative.  She was
quite ready to believe that, and speeded him on his
journey with smiles and kisses.

"While you are away," she said cheerfully, "I
shall be looking out for another Dream Cottage."

"You won't find it in Melchester," he replied
curtly.

Upon arrival in London he set forth gallantly in
search of a "pitch."  He wandered in and out of
curiosity shops big and small.  Some of the dealers
knew him slightly.  Many of the older men used to
deal with his father.  They were well aware that the
son refused on principle to sell to the trade.  Tomlin
had passed round that word long ago.  Quinney
inspected their wares, and chuckled to himself
whenever he encountered a fake labelled as a genuine
antique.  The biggest men displayed stuff not above
suspicion.  Indeed, the chuckling became audible
when he discovered a Minihy cabinet in a famous
establishment in St. James's Street.

"Guarantee that?" he asked of the rather supercilious
young gentleman in a frock coat who was
doing the honours.

"Certainly."

It was then that Quinney chuckled.  The young
gentleman, quite unaware that he was entertaining
a provincial dealer, said loftily:

"It's French.  Came out of a French château in Touraine."

"Signed?"

"I think not.  It's signed all over as a bit of the
finest Renaissance craftsmanship."

Quinney bent down, still chuckling.

"It is signed," he said, with conviction.

"Really?  Where, may I ask?"

Quinney indicated a small, much-battered piece
of oak.

"Remove that," he observed quietly, "and you
will find the signature under it."

"Whose signature?"

"The signature of a great artist who lives near
Treguier in Brittany."

"Lives?  What do you mean?"

Quinney met the young gentleman's scornful eyes
and held them.

"I mean, my lad, that your master has here a
very clever copy, signed where I say by the man
who copied it, whom I know.  I've not asked the
price, but I'll tell you this: if it's genuine, it's cheap
at two thousand; if it's a copy I can buy a dozen
just like it at sixteen pounds apiece.  Good-morning."

After three days' hard walking, Quinney summed
up results as follows: There were three classes of
dealers in London.  The tip-toppers, with establishments
in fashionable thoroughfares, who sold the
best stuff at a fancy price; the men, whose name was
Legion, who lived here, there, and everywhere,
selling wares good, bad, and indifferent at a small profit;
and the middle-men, who sold almost exclusively
to the big dealers.

"There is a place for me," said Quinney, with
absolute conviction.

He said as much to Tomlin next day.  They were
lunching together in an old-fashioned eating-house
just off Fleet Street, sitting bolt upright upon
wooden benches, and inhaling an atmosphere which
advertised insistently cheese, onions, chump chops,
and tobacco.  Tomlin was the host, and he had
ordered steak-and-kidney pudding, a Welsh rarebit
to follow, and a bottle of port.  He attacked these
viands with such gusto that Quinney said to himself:

"Never did see a man with a more unhealthy
appetite!"

Warmed into candid speech by this fine old
English food and drink, Tomlin said thickly:

"A place for you, my tulip?  Hope it won't be in
the Bankruptcy Court!"—and he chuckled grossly.

Tomlin's place, be it mentioned, was at the wrong
end of the Fulham Road, but he was talking of
moving to Bond Street.  Tomlin reckoned himself to be
one of the big dealers, and he talked in a full, throaty
voice:

"You're a fool to leave Melchester, Joe.  I say it
as a friend."

"There's a place for me in London," repeated
Quinney.

"Where?"

"Well, somewhere between the Fulham Road and
Long Acre."

"'Ow about rent?"

"'Tisn't the rent that worries me."

"Customers?"

"That's right—customers.  The business will have
to be built up slowly, because I mean to specialize."

"In what?"

"Old English porcelain, glass, and the finest
furniture."

"You'll starve."

"I mean to have one other department which may
keep the pot boiling."

"Give it a name, Joe."

"Not yet."

"My first and last word to you is: Go back to
Melchester and stay there."

Tomlin repeated this till Quinney sickened of his
company.  But he wanted the London man to predict
disaster in his raucous tones.  Success would
taste the sweeter when it came.  Moreover, Susan
hated Tomlin, to such an extent, indeed, that she
would flout his judgment.  She had never forgiven
his tale of a table with a broken leg.

The men separated after smoking two cigars.
Quinney walked to Soho Square, lit a better cigar
than Tomlin had given to him, and stared at an
ancient house with a pediment over the door, and a
signboard upon which were inscribed the exciting
words, "To Let."

The mansion—for it was thus styled—had challenged
his attention and interest two days before.
Tomlin would have ridiculed the idea of taking such
a house, and turning it into a shop, but Tomlin was a
tradesman, whereas Quinney believed himself to be
an artist.  The house was of the right period—early
Georgian from garret to cellar.

Quinney went over it.

It seemed to be the real right thing, so right that
the little man, who had unconsciously absorbed
some of the Melchester sermons, told himself that
the guiding finger of Providence could be plainly
discerned.  There were dry cellars for storing
valuable woods, a back-yard, and a big drawing-room,
finely decorated in the Adam style, possibly
by the hand of the Master, which occupied the first
floor, and looked out upon the Square through three
nobly-proportioned windows.  Quinney decided
instantly to make this splendid room his "sanctuary,"
the treasure-house, wherein his "gems" would be
fittingly enshrined.  The ground floor would serve
admirably as a shop.  There were several bedrooms
and excellent offices.

In regard to the situation he came to this
conclusion.  The shops of the groundlings in the trade
were invariably small and ill-lighted; the establishments
of the big dealers commanded a rent beyond
his means.  In any case, he would have to work up
a clientele, and his customers, when they did find
their way to this ancient square, would behold his
beautiful wares under the happiest conditions of
space and light.

The rent, including rates and taxes, came to less
than three hundred a year!  A big rent, it is true,
for a dealer with his capital, but much less than
Tomlin paid for large and inconvenient premises in
the Fulham Road.

He signed a long lease within twenty-four hours,
and returned, exulting in his strength, to Melchester
and Susan.



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He did not tell her his wonderful news at once.
A habit of secretiveness concerning his business was
forming itself.  It must be recorded on his behalf
that Susan's indifference to "sticks and stones"
exasperated him.  By this time he had recognized
her inability to appreciate fine "stuff!"  As a
saleswoman she had enchanted him, but even then, when
she trotted about the shop smiling sweetly at his
customers, he knew that she would never acquire a
sense of values, that nice discrimination which
detects unerringly the good from the very good, and
acclaims the genius of the artist so subtly differentiated
from the handicraft of the artisan.

Susan, artless soul! had news of her own to
impart.  She had found a house just outside Melchester—a
house with a bathroom, with hot and cold water
laid on, a labour-saving house quite up to date—a
bargain!

The expression of his shrewd face, as he listened,
warned Susan that he was keeping something from
her.  Human paste she understood better than he
did.  The animation died out of her voice as she
faltered:

"You look so queer, Joe."

Then he told her.

To his surprise and satisfaction she acquiesced
meekly.  She was thinking that her prayers had
been answered; but she could not bring herself to
say so.  Also she was cruelly hurt at his lack of
confidence, afraid to speak lest she should say too
much, too proud to break down, pathetically silent.
Quinney went on floundering amongst the broken ice.

"I'm out for a big thing.  I know that I can pull
it off single-handed.  Results will justify this move,
Susie.  It's no use my hidin' from you that I'm in
for a fight.  They'll down me if they can, but in the
end I shall come out on top, my girl.  On top!"

"On top of what, Joe?"

He caught hold of her cold hands, gripping them
tightly.  He never noticed how faintly the pressure
was returned.

"Atop o' the heap.  A big dealer.  It's in me.
Always knew it.  Not a dog's chance here.  Why,
even Primmer of Bath had to go to London.  I was
in his Piccadilly place yesterday.  And I can
remember what his old shop at Bath used to be."

"What does Mr. Tomlin say?"

"He's nasty, is Tom Tomlin.  I wanted him to be
nasty.  By Gum!  I egged him on to call me a fool
and an idiot."

"How I dislike that man!"

"He fairly wallowed in prophecies.  It will be the
same here.  I can hear Pinker goin' it."

"Have you asked Lord Mel's advice?"

Quinney glanced at her sharply.

"His lordship was very kind, but he's my landlord,
and I'm a good tenant.  He may be offended.
I must risk that."

Susan sighed as she said with finality:

"It's done?"

"Thank the Lord—yes!"

He suffered at the hands of Mrs. Biddlecombe,
who, since the fire, had become livelier in mind and
body.  She believed that a miracle had been wrought
upon her aged and infirm body, and regarded it as
sanctified by a Divine touch.  Laburnum Row
repeated with awe the old lady's solemn words:

"When I woke to hear the roaring of the flames, I
heard a Voice.  It seemed to say: 'Martha Biddlecombe,
arise and walk.'"

A select party of friends was listening, but—weed
your acquaintance how you may—nettles will spring
up unexpectedly.  A thin, acidulous spinster remarked
drily:

"We heard you—ran."

"It is perfectly true," replied Mrs. Biddlecombe,
with austere dignity.  "The hand of the Lord was
upon me, and I ran."

According to her lights, she dealt faithfully with
Joseph Quinney.  As his guest, helpless beneath his
roof, she had curbed too sharp a tongue.  In her own
lodgings, and mentally as well as physically "on her
legs again," she deemed it a duty to let that tongue
wag freely.  She received her son-in-law seated upon
a sofa, the hard, old-fashioned sofa covered with
black horse-hair.  Above the mantelpiece was a
framed print in crude colour, a portrait of the Great
White Queen, in all her Imperial splendour handing
a cheap edition of the Bible to a naked savage.
Underneath this work of art was inscribed: "This
is the secret of England's greatness."  Upon a small
marble-topped table near the sofa was another Bible.

"Be seated, Joseph."

She had allowed him to kiss her cheek; and he
guessed, as he saluted her, that she was in happy
ignorance of his monstrous offence.  At her request
Susan was not present.

"You are going to London?"

"That's right."

"It is not right, Joseph.  It is very far indeed
from being right.  It would seem that right and wrong,
as I interpret such plain words, have no definite
meaning to you."

"Pop away!"

"What?"

"I said 'Pop away.'  I meant, go on firing."

"I beg to be allowed to finish without flippant
interruption on your part.  Personally, the affairs
of this world do not concern me any longer.  I am
interested in them so far as they concern others, my
own flesh and blood.  Susan was born in Melchester,
and so were you."

"We couldn't help it.  You might have chosen a
livelier spot.  Me and Susan wasn't consulted.
Children in a better managed world would be consulted,
but there you are."

"Do you think, Joseph, in your arrogance, that
you could manage this world better than it is
managed?"

"Lord bless you, yes!"

"I trust that the Lord will bless me, young man.
but He will assuredly not bless you, unless you mend
your ways and your manners."

"Keep it up!"

It enraged her to perceive that he was enjoying
himself.  She wondered vaguely how the Bishop
would deal with such a hardened offender.

"I, for one, refuse to accompany you to London."

"Sorry."

"Are you sorry?  I doubt it.  Susan will miss me"—she
wiped away two tears invisible to Quinney, and
her voice trembled querulously as she continued—"and
Posy will be deprived of a grandmother at a
time when her mind and character are being made
or marred.  I understand, also, that you are risking
a fortune which is more than ample for a man in your
station of life.  It would appear also that you have
taken this step in defiance of advice from the Marquess
of Mel."

"I took it"—he drew in his breath sharply, speaking
almost as solemnly as his very upright judge—"because
I had to take it.  Melchester is too small
for me, too sleepy, too stoopid, too hide-bound.  The
most wonderful thing in the whole town is just like me."

"To what do you allude?"

"To the spire of the Cathedral.  It soars, don't it?
Can you see it laying flat on the ground?  Can you
fancy it asleep?  It taught me to soar.  When I was
a boy, crawlin' at the old man's heel, I used to say to
it: 'Gosh, you're well out of it!'  And now"—he
smiled triumphantly—"I'm well out of it, for ever
and ever, Amen!"

Mrs. Biddlecombe rallied her failing energies for a
last charge.  Somehow she was impressed by this
queer son-in-law.  He confounded her.  She remarked
slowly:

"It seems a strange thing to say, but I have heard
of spires struck by God's lightning."

"Maybe," said Quinney, rising; "but you can
take it from me that this spire won't be struck
because it's fitted with a lightnin' conductor."

He retired, chuckling.  Mrs. Biddlecombe shook
her head.  She was utterly at a loss to determine
whether Quinney was alluding to the Cathedral spire
or to himself.  If to himself, who or what was his
lightning conductor?





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.. _`BLUDGEONINGS`:

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   BOOK II

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   CHAPTER X

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   BLUDGEONINGS

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   \I

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London exercised the influence that might be
expected upon such a character as Quinney's.  The
soot, so to speak, brought out the chlorophyl.  As he
put it to Susan, with grim humour:

"Makes us feel a bit green, hey?"

He had supposed that the big dealers would ignore
him; he had not expected what he found—active
hostility.  His first fight, for example, opened his
eyes by closing one of them.  A brief account of it
must be chronicled.  He had kept out of the auction
rooms, like Christopher's, but he frequented small
sales, and became a menace to a ring of Hebrew
dealers, who, hitherto, had managed such affairs with
great executive ability entirely in their own interests.
Quinney was well aware of their methods.  At the
sale proper prices were kept at the lowest possible
level.  The real buying and selling took place
afterwards in a private room at some neighbouring tavern.
Quinney, who was invited to join the "ring," knew
all about "knock-outs," and decided that he would
not identify himself with such an unsavoury crowd.
Tomlin warned him.

"Leave those swine alone, Joe."

"I mean to, old man."

"But remember this, they won't leave you alone,
the dirty dogs!"

They didn't.

Upon the eve of a small sale in the suburbs, held at
the house of a bankrupt merchant, who had bought,
in the days of his prosperity, some good bits of
furniture, Quinney was "nosing round," as he called it,
by himself, jotting down in a notebook the prices he
was prepared to pay on the morrow.  Suddenly there
entered a truculent-looking young man of the type
that may be seen boxing at Wonderland, which is
just off the Whitechapel Road.  He swaggered up to
Quinney and said drawlingly:

"Buyin' against my crowd, you was, las' week?"

Quinney eyed him nervously, as he answered with
spirit:

"Your crowd, hey?"

"I said my crowd.  Want to join us?"

"No, my lad, I don't."

"Why not?"

"I'm rather careful about the company I keep, see?"

The young man glanced round.  They were quite
alone.  Then he hit Quinney hard.  Our hero ducked
ineffectively, and caught the blow on his left eye.
Instantly he realized that his antagonist was what is
called a "workman."  Nevertheless he "set about
him."  In less than a minute the fine old adage which
sets forth that right is greater than might was
lamentably perverted.  Quinney was left half
senseless on a Turkey carpet which bore stains of the
encounter, and his aggressor fled.  Next day, Quinney
remained at home, tended by Susan, who admitted
that she felt like Jael, the wife of Heber, the
Kenite.

"Can't you prosecute?" she asked indignantly.

"Never saw the fellow before, never likely to see
him again.  Hired for the job, he was—earned his
money, too."

After this experience he kept out of third-class
London sales, buying as before from provincial
dealers, making it worth their while to come to him
first.  Your provincial man is not omniscient, and is
prepared to accept a small profit upon every article
that passes through his hands.  Quinney secured some
bargains, but he could not sell them, because he had
no customers.

His next experience was more serious.  He had
gone to Melshire to buy a certain satin-wood commode
with panels painted by Angelica Kauffman.  The
owner of the commode, a fox-hunting squire, knew
nothing of its value, but he happened to know
Quinney, and he offered the commode to Quinney for
fifty pounds.  This incident illustrates nicely the
sense of honour which prevails among dealers in
antiques.  The commode had been advertised as part
of the contents of an ancient manor house.  Other
Melshire dealers, many of them Quinney's friends,
were attending the sale.  Immensely to the fox-hunting
squire's surprise, Quinney pointed out that
it would not be fair to the other dealers to buy
before-hand a valuable bit of furniture already advertised
in a printed catalogue.  He concluded:

"It'll fetch more than fifty pounds."

At the sale it fetched ninety-seven pounds.  At
the "knock-out" afterwards, bidding against the
other dealers, Quinney paid nine hundred pounds
for this "gem," and told himself, with many
chucklings, that he would double his money within
a few weeks.  He returned to London with his
prize, and recited the facts to Susan, whose
sympathy ranged itself upon the side of the Melchester
squire.

"Seems to me that poor man was robbed.  Ninety-seven
pounds for a thing that you say is worth two
thousand.  It's awful."

"Is it?  Now, look ye here, Susie, I'm going to put
you right on this for ever and ever, see?  I'm not in
this business for my health.  Like every other
merchant, I buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the
dearest.  It's not my business to educate country
gentlemen, who've had twice my advantages.  If the
owners of good stuff don't take the trouble to find
out the value of what they've got, so much the worse
for them, the blooming idiots!  I play the game, my
girl.  I might have bought that commode for a level
fifty.  Think of it!  Why didn't I?  Because I'm an
honourable man.  Because it wouldn't have been
straight with the others who were after that commode.
Has it soaked in?  I'll just add this: It's we dealers
who create values.  Never thought o' that, did you?
Nor anyone else outside the profession.  But it's
gospel truth.  Dealers create the big prices, not the
silly owners, who don't know enough to keep their
pictures in decent condition.  I remember a country
parson who kept his umbrella in a big *famille verte*
jar.  Tomlin bought that jar for a few pounds, and
sold it at Christopher's for fifteen hundred.  The
parson made a fine hullabaloo, but it served him jolly
well right.  We do the work, and we're entitled to
the big profits."

Susan felt crushed, but a leaven of her mother in
her constrained her to reply:

"I hope that commode is worth nine hundred pounds."

"It's worth a damn sight more than that, Susie!"

Tomlin came to see it next day.  He examined it
carefully, with his sharp nose cocked at a critical
angle.  Finally, he said hesitatingly:

"Are you quite sure, Joe, that Angelica Kauffman
painted them panels?"

"Just as sure, old man, as if I'd seen her at it."

Nevertheless, Tomlin's question rankled.



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   \II

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With many apologies, we present the reader to
Messrs. Lark and Bundy, of Oxford Street.
Gustavus Lark is probably the best known of the London
art dealers.  He is now an old man, and his sons and
Bundy's sons manage an immense business.  Ten
years ago he had not retired.  Criticism of him or his
methods are irrelevant to this chronicle, but a
side-light is thrown upon them when we consider how he
treated Joe Quinney, a young man against whom he
had no grudge whatever.  Gustavus Lark heard, of
course, that a Melchester dealer, newly settled in
Soho Square, had bought a commode said to be
painted by Angelica Kauffman for nine hundred
pounds.  Immediately he sent for his eldest son, a
true chip of the old block.

"Why did we not hear of this?"

The son answered curtly:

"Because we can't hear of everything.  There
wasn't one big London dealer at the sale; and the
only thing worth having was this commode."

"Is it the goods?"

"I believe so."

"Do you know?"

"Well, yes—I know."

"I must send for Pressland."

Pressland deserves some little attention.  England
honours him as a connoisseur of Old Masters.  Upon
pictures his word is often the first and the last.  We
know that he "boomed" certain painters, long dead.
To quote Quinney, he "created" values.  And he
worked hand in hand with just such men as Gustavus
Lark.  In appearance he might have been a successful
dentist.  He wore a frock-coat and small
side-whiskers.  He said "Please" in an ingratiating tone.
His hands were scrupulously clean, as if he had
washed them often after dirty jobs.  Out of a pale,
sallow face shone two small grey eyes, set too close
together.  He contradicted other experts with an
inimitable effrontery.  "What is this?" he would
say, laying a lean forefinger upon a doubtful
signature.  "A Velasquez?  I think not.  Why?
Because, my dear sir, I know!"

Admittedly, he did know about Velasquez; and
this knowledge was, so to speak, on tap, at the service
of anybody willing to pay a reasonable fee.  But his
knowledge of furniture and porcelain was placed
with reserve at the disposition of dealers.  He told
many persons that he made mistakes, and the public
never guessed that such mistakes were paid for
munificently.

Gustavus Lark sent for Pressland.  The men met
in Lark's sanctum, an austere little room, simply
furnished.  There is another room next to it, and
when Gustavus sends for a very particular visitor
nobody enters that ante-chamber except a member
of the firm.

"Do you know this Soho Square man, Quinney?"

"I have met him."

"Has he come to stay?"

"Um!  I think so."

Gustavus Lark stroked his beard.  He looked very
handsome and prosperous, not unlike a genial
monarch whom he was said by his clerks to understudy.

"I want you," he said slowly, "to go to Soho
Square this morning, and if by any chance Quinney
should ask your opinion of the commode, why"—he
laughed pleasantly—"in that case I shouldn't
mind betting quite a considerable sum that you
would discover it to be—er—a clever reproduction."

Pressland smiled.

"Probably."

"I mean to have a look at it myself later."

Pressland went his way.  Part of his success in life
may be assigned to a praiseworthy habit of executing
small and big commissions with becoming promptitude.
He strolled into Quinney's shop as if he were
the most idle man in town.

"Anything to show me?" he asked languidly.

Quinney was delighted to see him.  He recognized
Pressland at once.

"Happy and honoured to see you, sir."

Presently, he took him upstairs into the drawing-room,
already spoken of as the "sanctuary."  In it
were all his beloved treasures.  He had done up the
room "regardless."  Here stood his Chippendale
cabinet, filled with Early Worcester and Chelsea;
here were his cherished prints in colour, his finest
specimens of Waterford glass, two or three beautiful
miniatures, and many other things.  Pressland was
astonished, but he said little, nodding his head from
time to time, and listening attentively to Quinney.
As soon as he entered the room he perceived the
satin-wood commode standing in the place of honour.

Pressland praised the Chippendale cabinet, and
ignored the commode.  Quinney frowned.  Finally
he jerked out:

"What do you think of that, sir?"

"What?"

"That commode.  Pedigree bit, out of an old
Melshire manor house.  Good stuff, hey?"

Pressland adjusted his pince-nez, and stared hard
and long at the panels.  Quinney began to fidget.

"Bit of all right—um?"

Pressland said slowly:

"I hope you didn't pay very much for it, Mr. Quinney."

"I paid a thumping big cheque for it.  Never paid
so much before for a single bit."

Pressland murmured pensively:

"I thought you knew your furniture."

"Ain't it all right?  There's no secret about what
I paid.  It's been paragraphed—nine hundred pounds."

A soft whistle escaped from Pressland's thin lips.
He said depressingly:

"I dare say you know more about those panels
than I do."

Quinney protested vigorously:

"Don't play that on me, Mr. Pressland.  If I knew
one quarter of what you know about pictures I'd be
a proud man."

"A pedigree bit?  What do you mean by that?"

"Owner said it had been in his family for more
than a hundred years.  He said that the panels were
painted by Angelica Kauffman."

"Are you quite sure he didn't say after Angelica
Kauffman?"

Quinney shook his head.  From every pore in his
skin confidence was oozing.

"Did he know the value of it?"

"No, he didn't."

"Ah!  He must have been pleased with your cheque."

Quinney explained matters.  Pressland's expression
became acutely melancholy; and his silence, as he
turned away, was eloquent of a commiseration too
deep for words.

"Isn't it right, Mr. Pressland?"

"My opinion is worth little, Mr. Quinney."

"I'm prepared to pay for it if necessary."

"No, no, no!  Not from you.  Well, then, I am
afraid you have been had.  Did the dealers at the
'knock-out' suspect that you wanted it badly?"

"Perhaps they did.  I kept on bidding."

"Just so.  It's a little way they have.  Very, very
jealous, some of them.  You have been successful.
Success makes enemies.  I have enemies.  There are
men in London who accuse me of abominable,
unmentionable things."  He smiled modestly, spreading
out his hands.

"You can afford to laugh at 'em, Mr. Pressland."

"I do."

"Am I to take it from you, sir, that Angelica did
not paint those panels?"

Pressland shrugged his shoulders.

"I am of opinion, and I may well be mistaken,
that those panels were painted after Angelica Kauffman's
death, probably by a clever pupil.  But please
ask somebody else."

He drifted away, promising to call again, assuring
Quinney that he would send him customers.



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   \III

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Susan had the story red-hot from his trembling
lips about ten minutes later.

"I've been done—cooked to a crisp!" he wailed.

She kissed and consoled him tenderly, but he
refused to be comforted.  She had applied raw steak to
his injured eye.  What balm could she pour upon a
bruised and bleeding heart?

"That man knows.  He felt sorry for me.  He
hated to tell me.  He promised that he would tell
nobody else—a good sort!  What did your mother
say—Sir Humpty and Lady Dumpty.  There you are!"

She kissed him again and stroked his face.

"I was so sure of my own judgment, Susie.  The
loss of the money is bad enough, but everybody
will find out that I've been had.  That's what tears
me!"

"He may be mistaken."

"Not he.  He knows.  I've a mind to go outside
and hire a strong man to kick me."

Next morning there was a wholesome reaction.
Susan and he stood in front of the commode.  The
sun streamed upon it.

"By Gum!  I do believe it's all right.  If it isn't,
I'd better go back to Melchester and stay there."  He
caressed the lovely wood so tenderly that Susan
felt jealous.  "Oh, you beauty!" he exclaimed
passionately.  "I believe in you; yes, I do.  An
artist created you.  An artist painted those panels."

He recovered his cheerfulness, and assured Susan
that he was prepared to back his opinion against
Tomlin, Pressland, and all other pessimists.

Upon the following Monday Gustavus presented
himself.  For a dizzy moment our hero believed that
the most illustrious male in the kingdom had dropped
in incognito.  Gustavus wore a grey cut-away coat,
with an orchid in the lapel of it, and he was smoking
an imposing cigar.

"I am Gustavus Lark," he said.

"Pleased to see you, Mr. Lark."

No man in England could make himself more
agreeable than the great dealer.  Gossip had it that
he had begun life as a "rapper."  A rapper, as the
name signifies, is one who raps at all doors, seeking
what he may find behind them—a bit of porcelain, a
valuable print, an old chair—anything.  A successful
rapper must combine in one ingratiating personality
the qualities of a diplomat, a leader of forlorn hopes,
a high-class burglar, and an American book agent.
When the door upon which he has rapped opens, he
must enter, and refuse to budge till he has satisfied
himself that there is nothing in his line worth the
buying.

Tomlin had the following story to tell of Gustavus,
as a rapper.  You must take it for what it's worth.
Tomlin, we know, was a bit of a rascal, and a liar of
the first magnitude, but he affirmed solemnly that the
tale is true.

Behold Gustavus in the good old days of long ago,
when prints in colours were still to be found in
cottages, rapping at the door of some humble house.  A
widow opens it, and asks a good-looking young man
what his business may be.  He enters audaciously,
and states it.  He is seeking board and lodging.  He
is seeking, also, a set of the London "Cries."  But
he does not mention that.  He has heard—it is his
business to hear such gossip—that the widow
possesses the complete set in colour, the full baker's
dozen.  He arranges for a week's board and lodging,
and he satisfies himself that the prints are genuine
specimens.  In his satchel he carries thirteen bogus
prints, excellent reproductions.  At dead of night he
takes from the frames the genuine prints and substitutes
the false ones.  Three days afterwards he goes
to London, and, later, sells the prints for a sum
sufficient to start him in business.  But he does not rest
there, as a lesser man might well do.  A rapper's
hands, be it noted, are against all men.  He robs
cheerfully the men of his own trade—the small
dealers.  Gustavus, then, proceeds to pile Pelion
upon Ossa.  He next visits a dealer of his acquaintance
and tells him that he has discovered a genuine
set of "Cries," which can be bought cheap in their
original frames.  The dealer, who is not an expert in
colour prints, is deceived by the frames and by the
authentic yarn which the widow spins.  He does buy
the prints cheap, and sells them as genuine to one of
the innumerable collectors with more money than
brains.  Gustavus gets his commission and nets a
double profit!

Quinney had heard this story from Tomlin and
others, but the benevolent appearance of his visitor
put suspicion to flight, as it had done scores of times
before.  It was quite impossible to believe that an old
gentleman, who bore such an amazing resemblance
to one venerated as the Lord's anointed, could have
begun his career as a rapper!

"Anything of interest to show me?" asked Gustavus
blandly.  He treated everybody, except his
own understrappers, with distinguished courtesy.
He spoke to Quinney, whom he despised, exactly as
he would have spoken to a Grand Duke.

"Glad to take you round, Mr. Lark."

"I am told that you do not sell to dealers."

"That's as may be.  I want to build up a business
with private customers."

"Quite right.  My own methods."

He glanced round the shop, which was divided
roughly into sections.  In the first were genuine bits;
in the second were the best reproductions conspicuously
labelled as such.  The reproductions were so
superlatively good that Lark recognized at once the
character of the man who had so audaciously
exposed them.  Then and there he made up his mind
that Quinney was to be reckoned with.  He smiled as
he waved a white hand protestingly at a piece of
tapestry which might have challenged the interest
of an expert.  He had sold such tapestry as old
Gobelins, and he knew that the maker of it only
dealt with a chosen few.

"Wonderful, isn't it?" said Quinney.

"You mean to sell first-class copies as such?"

"Yes.  I guarantee what I sell, Mr. Lark, as—as
you do."

"I don't sell fakes."

"Not necessary in your case.  Will you come
upstairs?"

"With pleasure."

Quinney was trembling with excitement.  Gustavus
noticed this, and went on smiling.  Pressland
had prepared him.  He praised and appraised many
things in the sanctuary, but he merely glanced at
the commode.

"I want you to look at this, Mr. Lark."

"Bless me!  Is that the commode which you
bought in Melshire?"

"It is.  What do you think of it?"

Gustavus protruded a large lower lip; his eyebrows,
strongly marked, expressed surprise, a twinkle
in his left eye indicated discreet amusement.

"Why isn't it downstairs with the others?"

"The others?"

"By the side of that piece of tapestry."

"It's the best bit I have," said Quinney
defiantly.

"Surely not.  I have bought such tapestry as
yours before.  I will admit that I paid a big figure
for it.  We dealers are sadly done sometimes.  This
commode is quite as good in its way as the Gobelins,
but it ought not to be next that cabinet."

"Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Lark, that you call
it a fake?"

"A fake—no.  A copy admirably executed—yes."

"Oh, Lord!"

He made no attempt to conceal his distress.
Gustavus patted his shoulder encouragingly.

"I may be mistaken.  I am often mistaken."

"You?"

"Even I.  Come, come, I see that I have upset
you.  But, as a friend, as a brother dealer, I say this:
Get rid of it.  You are taking up a line of your own.
You mean to sell honest copies as such, and to
guarantee the genuine bits.  A capital idea.  Only
don't mix up the two.  To succeed in London it is
necessary to establish a reputation.  My eldest son
tells me that you built up a substantial business in
Melchester—that your reputation there was above
reproach.  Excellent!  I rejoiced to hear it.  In
our business we want men like you.  But, no
compromise!  Sell that commode for what it is, a fine
copy executed at the end of the eighteenth century.
As such it has a considerable value.  I have a
customer, an American gentleman, who would buy
it to-morrow for what it is, and pay a handsome
figure."

The unhappy Quinney moistened his lips with a
feverish tongue.

"What do you call a handsome figure, Mr. Lark?"

"Five or six hundred."

"And I paid nine!"

"Well, well!"

Gustavus turned his broad back upon the
commode, and examined the Early Worcester in the
Chippendale cabinet.  There was a tea-set of the
Dr. Wall period, bearing the much-prized square
mark, some thirty pieces of scale-blue with flowers
delicately painted in richly-gilded panels.

"Is that scale-blue for sale?"

"At a price, Mr. Lark.  I have had it for three
years.  I'm waiting for a customer who will give me
two hundred pounds, not a penny less."

"Two hundred pounds?  And you won't
sell to the dealers who have customers who
write such big cheques.  Now, look here,
Mr. Quinney, I am sorry for you.  I know how you
feel, because I have made, I repeat, sad and
costly blunders myself.  You don't ask enough for
that scale-blue."

"Not enough?"

"I could sell that set for three hundred this
afternoon.  To prove that I am not boasting
I will offer you two hundred guineas, cash on the
nail."

"Done!" said Quinney.  He added excitedly:
"I'm much obliged, Mr. Lark.  I wish you could
send me the American gentleman."

Gustavus laughed.  He looked at Quinney with
quite a paternal air.

"Come, come, isn't that asking too much?"

"I beg pardon, of course it is, but what am I to
do about that commode?"

"I repeat—sell it."

"You know that I haven't a dog's chance of selling
it now.  Don't flimflam me, Mr. Lark!  You're
too big a man, too good a sort.  You've treated me
handsomely over that scale-blue.  Now help me out
of this hole, if you can."

Lark nodded impressively.  He went back to the
commode, and examined it meticulously, opening
and shutting the doors, looking at the back, scraping
the paint of the panels with the point of a penknife.
Then the oracle spoke portentously:

"I never haggle with dealers, Mr. Quinney, and I
don't want that commode; but, to oblige you, I'll
give you five hundred for it, and chance making a
hundred profit."

"Make it six hundred, Mr. Lark."

"I repeat—I never haggle."

"Damn it!  I must cut a loss."

"Always the wise thing to do.  My offer holds
good for twenty-four hours.  Isn't Tomlin a friend
of yours?"

"We've had many dealings together."

"He might pay more."

"Not he.  I'll accept your offer, Mr. Lark, with
many thanks.  I'll not forget this."

Gustavus returned to Oxford Street.  He sold
the commode to an American millionaire for two
thousand five hundred pounds, but Quinney, fortunately
for his peace of mind, never discovered this
till some years had passed.

He told Tom Tomlin that Lark was a perfect
gentleman, and that the story of the Rapper and
the London "Cries" was a malicious lie on the
face of it.

Tomlin sniffed.





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   CHAPTER XI


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   \I

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The loss of four hundred pounds stimulated our
hero to greater efforts.  Deep down in his heart,
moreover, lay the desire to rehabilitate himself.
Susan had spared him exasperating reproaches, but
he perceived, so he fancied, pity in her faithful eyes.
Her ministrations recalled that humiliating Channel
crossing, when his superiority as a male had been
buried in a basin!  Let us admit that he wanted to
play the god with Susan, to shake the sphere of home
with his Olympian nod, to hear her soft ejaculation:
"Joe, dear, you are wonderful!"

At this crisis in his fortunes he found himself, for
the first time in his life, with time on his hands.
His premises were overstocked to such an extent
that he dared not run the temptation of attending
sales.  To succeed greatly, he only needed customers,
and they shunned him as if Soho Square were an
infected district.

It began to strike him that he had embarked upon
a highly speculative business.  Tomlin was clear
upon this point.

"It's a gamble if you go for big things.  Buying
that commode was a gamble.  You can't escape
from it.  That's what makes it interesting.  Win
a tidy bit here, lose a tidy bit there, and it's all the
same a hundred years hence."

This familiar philosophy percolated through
Quinney's mind.  It never occurred to him that he
could be called a gambler, and yet something in him
thrilled at the name.  He heard Tomlin's platitudes,
and wondered why he had never thought of them
before.

"Farming's gambling—a mug's game!  Sooner
put my money on to a horse than into the ground!
Marriage!  The biggest gamble of all!  You struck a
winner, my lad—I didn't."

"I suppose," said Quinney, staring hard at Tomlin,
"that you don't gamble outside your business?"

"Yes, I do, when I get a gilt-edged tip."

"Race-horses?"

"Stock Exchange.  Customers tell me things.
I'm fairly in the know, I am.  Make a little bit, lose
a little bit!  It binges me up when I feel blue."

"I'd like to get back a slice o' that lost four
hundred quid."

"Maybe I can help you to do it.  A customer of
mine is in the Kaffir Market."

"Kaffir Market!  What's that?"

It has been said that Quinney was grossly ignorant
of things outside his own business.

"If you ain't as innocent as Moses in the bulrushes!
African Mines, you greenhorn!  He tells me
of things.  Never let me down—not once.  He says
a boom is just due."

"Do you risk much, Tom?"

"Lord bless you, no!  I buy a few likely shares on
margin, and carry 'em over.  A man must have some
excitement."

"Yes," said Quinney thoughtfully, "he must."

He did not mention this talk to Susan, but as he
kicked his heels waiting for customers, the necessity
of excitement—any excitement—gripped at his
vitals.  Meanwhile, let it be placed to his credit that
he resisted the daily temptation to sell stuff to dealers.
He could have sold his treasures to Lark at a fine
profit, but he remained true to the principle: keep
your best things to attract private customers.  He
hoped that his kind patron, Lord Mel, would come
to see him.  Possibly his lordship was offended,
because his advice had been spurned.  Then he heard
that Lord Mel was abroad, and not likely to return to
England for several months.  He missed the
bi-weekly meetings at the Mitre, and he did not dare to
tell his Susan that he was depressed and dull, because
he dreaded the inevitable "I told you so."  Susan
missed her few friends, and Quinney strained his
powers of deception in the attempt to cheer her up
by affirming that he had bettered his position by
leaving Melchester.

Many wise persons contend that if you want anything
inordinately, you get it.  Excitement came to
Quinney when he least expected it.



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   \II

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Hitherto adventurers of the first flight had left
him alone.  Small imposters are easily detected.
Nobody could deal with the baser sort of trickster
more drastically than Quinney.  Rappers, for
example, rapped in vain at his door.  If he opened it,
they never crossed the threshold.  But when a
provincial pigeon, preening his wings, is discovered
within a stone's throw of the Greek quarter in London,
some fancier is likely to make an attempt to bag
the bird.  Such a one entered Quinney's establishment
some three months after the lamentable sale of
the commode.  He appeared to be a quiet, well-dressed
man, and he wore a single pearl in his cravat,
which inspired confidence.  He asked Quinney if he
ever attended sales as an agent, to buy things on the
usual commission.  Quinney had acted as agent for
Lord Mel upon several occasions, and we may pardon
him for mentioning the fact to the stranger, who
seemed mildly impressed.  He remarked casually
that he knew Lord Mel, and had shot some high
pheasants at Mel Court.  Quinney, in his turn, was
impressed by this information, for he knew that
Lord Mel was nice in his selection of guests.  Eventually
Quinney consented to attend a certain sale, and
to bid for two Dutch pictures which the stranger had
marked in a catalogue.

"This is my card," said the stranger.  "I shall be
happy to give you a banker's reference."  He named
a well-known bank, but Quinney was quite satisfied
with the name and address on the card.  His visitor
was an army officer, a Major Fraser, and he belonged
to a famous Service Club.

Somewhat to his disappointment, the two Dutch
pictures fetched a price beyond the limit imposed by
the Major, who dropped in next day and expressed
his regrets.  He was so civil and genial that Quinney
hoped to have the honour of serving him on some
future occasion.  The Major glanced at the sanctuary
and before leaving paid ten pounds for a small Bow
figure, and ordered it to be sent to the Savoy Hotel.
After he had gone, Quinney found a letter addressed
to Major Archibald Fraser, of Loch Tarvie, Inverness,
N.B.  He sent back the letter with the Bow figure,
and he was curious enough to look up Major
Archibald Fraser in Kelly's *Handbook to the Titled,
Landed, and Official Classes*.  He discovered, to his
satisfaction, that the Major owned two properties in
Scotland, and was a Justice of the Peace.  He had
married the daughter of a well-known Scotch magnate.
Quinney chuckled and rubbed his hands.  The right
sort were finding their way to Soho Square at last.
After this the Major dropped in again and again,
always in search of knowledge, which Quinney supplied
with increasing pleasure.  In a word, the pigeon
was ready for plucking.

During his next visit the Major spoke with
enthusiasm of a picture he had discovered in Dorset.  He
assured Quinney that the picture was a genuine
Murillo.  Then he pulled a bundle of notes out of his
pocket, handed twenty pounds to Quinney, and
delivered the following speech:

"I must go to Inverness to-night," he said
regretfully.  "My factor has wired for me about the
letting of a forest of mine.  Take this money on
account of expenses, go to Dorchester, do yourself
well—there is an excellent inn there, and a few
bottles left of some '68 port.  To-morrow there
will be a sale at a small auction mart in the town.
This picture will be offered.  Here's a photograph
of it.  Buy it for me.  In three days I shall be back
in town."

He was hurrying away when Quinney stopped him.
Queer notions of business these army gentlemen had,
to be sure!

"What am I to bid for the picture, Major?"

"I'll go to fifteen hundred.  I shouldn't be furious
if you paid a hundred more.  Wire to Loch Tarvie!
Bye-bye!"

He was away before Quinney could get in another
word.

"Thruster, and no error!" murmured Quinney to
himself.

He travelled to Dorchester that afternoon and paid
a visit to the auction mart before dinner.  The
auctioneer knew him, and expressed surprise at seeing
him, for he was selling only job lots.

"Nothing to interest you, Mr. Quinney."

"Perhaps not.  I'll have a squint round as I am here."

The auctioneer accompanied him, and Quinney
soon found his picture, which was very dirty and
inconspicuous.  Old masters were not in his line, but
he recognized the frame at once as being genuine—a
fine specimen of carved wood, although much
battered.  The auctioneer said carelessly:

"I had a gentleman staring at that picture this
morning.  You're after the frame, I dare say."

Quinney made no reply.  He saw that a small
portion of the dirty canvas had been rubbed.

"Might look quite different if it was cleaned,"
said the auctioneer.  "The other fellow did that with
his handkerchief and a small bottle of stuff he
carried in his pocket.  I didn't like to object.  Colour
comes out nicely!"

"Who does it belong to?"

"A stranger to me.  I take everything as it comes.
I'm in a small way of business, as you know,
Mr. Quinney; but some nice stuff has passed through
my hands."

He plunged into an ocean of reminiscences, punctuating
his remarks with lamentations of ignorance.

"If I really knew.  Suppose it's a gift.  You have
it, Mr. Quinney.  I have a sort of general knowledge
of values, but it's the special knowledge that picks up
the big bargains."

Quinney returned to his hotel.

At the auction next day two or three country
dealers, small men, with whom he had a nodding
acquaintance, were bidding.  The gentleman who
was interested in the picture was present also,
languidly indifferent to the proceedings.  However,
he became animated when the picture was put up as
"a valuable Madonna and Child, the work of an old
master."  The gentleman bid a hundred for it,
apparently to the surprise of the small dealers.

"One hundred and twenty-five," said Quinney.

The gentleman bent down to whisper a word to a
man who stood next him, and then he stared hard at
Quinney, with a slight frown upon his smooth
forehead.

"One hundred and fifty," he said quietly.

Finally Quinney secured the picture for eleven
hundred pounds, well pleased at having secured it so
cheap.  The rival bidder led him aside.

"You are the famous dealer, Joseph Quinney?"

Quinney smiled complacently.  The gentleman
continued in a whisper:

"I expected to get that picture for a hundred
pounds.  You have fairly outbidden me, and I could
not bid a farthing more to-day; but will you kindly
tell me what you will take for your bargain?"

"Sorry," said Quinney; "but I bought it on a
commission for a well-known collector."

"There is no more to be said," replied the other.

He nodded pleasantly and vanished.  Quinney
never saw him again.  Nor did he see Major
Archibald Fraser.  Quinney paid the auctioneer with a
cheque, and returned to London, after wiring the
Major that the treasure was his.  Three days later,
not hearing a word from his client, he became slightly
uneasy.  His cheque had been cashed; the picture
was in his possession.  The abominable truth leaked
out slowly.  Major Archibald Fraser, of Loch Tarvie,
had been impersonated by a *chevalier d'industrie*.
The picture was worth, perhaps, forty pounds, and
the frame another five-and-twenty!

The pigeon from the country had been plucked.



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   \III

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The poor fellow sobbed out the facts to his Susan
in a passion of self-abasement.  The loss of the money
was serious enough, but what ground him to powder
was the fact that he had become the laughing-stock
of the London dealers.  Every man jack of them
knew.  He could not show his face in an auction
room without provoking spasms of raucous laughter.
The Dorchester auctioneer, called upon to prove his
innocence (which he did), made the tale public.  It
was acclaimed as "copy" by scores of newspapers.
And salt was rubbed into his wounds by the reporters
whose sympathy seemed to lie with the two scoundrels
who had devised so clever a scheme, and escaped
with the swag!  There was a cruel headline: "A
Biter Bit."

"Whom have I bit?" he demanded of Susan.

The little woman mingled her tears with his, but
no words of hers could assuage his misery or stem the
torrent of self-accusation.

"Nice sort of fool you've married!  A mug of
mugs!  You was right.  Ought to have remained in
Melchester!  Ought to have remained in swaddling
clothes!  Ought never to have been born!"

He apostrophized Posy, now a child of ten.

"Nice sort of father you've got!  Look at him!
Why didn't you choose somebody else, hey?  Picked
a wrong'un, you did!"

Posy lifted her young voice and wept with her
parents.  And then Susan, almost hysterical, said
with unconscious humour:

"Gracious!  Isn't this a rainy afternoon!"



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   \IV

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After a few days the sun shone again.  Lord Mel,
who had returned to England, called upon his former
tenant, and listened with sympathy to the tale of
thwackings.  Quinney added details which he had
kept from Susan.  Fired by Tomlin, he had ventured
into the Kaffir Market, where the bears had mauled
him.  His losses, fortunately, were inconsiderable;
but once again he had been "downed" by Londoners.
He was too proud to whine before Lord Mel, and from
long habit he expressed himself whimsically.

"Not fit to cross the road without a policeman.
Time I advertised for a nurse or a keeper!"

"Are you thinking of going back to Melchester?"

At this Quinney exploded.

"My lord, I couldn't face Pinker, and Mrs. Biddlecombe
would cackle and nag at me till I wrung her
neck.  She wrote to Susan to say that she was sorry
to hear that the Lord had seen fit to afflict me
grievously.  In her heart she's glad."

"You don't blame the Lord?"

"I blame myself.  I've been a silly daw, strutting
about like a peacock.  I wanted a fight, and I've
had it; but I can't go back to Melchester.  I must
stick it out here, win or lose, customers or no
customers.  If the worst comes to the worst, I can
sell to dealers.  It means slavery."

"But you have some customers?"

"Very few—the wrong sort.  Mostly women, who
don't value their own time or mine.  They look at my
stuff, and call it 'rather nice'; they try to pick up
a few wrinkles about glass and porcelain, and then
they drift out, promising to call again."

"We must try to alter this."

"It does me good to see your lordship's face again."

Lord Mel bought a table and some Irish glass.  He
shook Quinney's hand at parting genially.

"You've had a dose.  Perhaps your system needed
it.  Pay my respects to Mrs. Quinney, and tell her
not to worry."

Quinney ran upstairs to Susan.

"Lord Mel's been in.  Sent his respects to you.
You're not to worry—see?"

"I am not worrying much, Joe.  Nobody escapes
hard times."

"His lordship has faith in me.  He ain't offended.
Just the same as ever.  I told him everything—more
than I told you."

"More than you told me?"

"I lost a few hundreds dabbling in mines.  All
that foolishness is over and done with.  I mean to
stick to what I know, and the people I know who'll
stick to me.  I shall give my undivided attention to
business.  I mean to work harder than ever, so as to
win back what I've lost."

"How much have you lost, dear?"

"I'm not speakin' of money, Susie.  I've lost my
self-respect, and I don't stand with you just where I
did."

"You do—you know you do!"

He shook his head obstinately.

"I know I don't.  You ain't suffering from a crick
in the neck along of lookin' up at me.  I ain't been
soaring lately.  Wriggling like a crushed worm about
fits me."

"Joe, dear, you've never quite understood me."

"Hey?"

"I married you for better or worse."

He stared at her amazedly.

"Lawsy!  It never entered into your pretty head
that it could be for worse?"

"I should love you just the same if it were."

"No, no, that ain't sense, Susie.  It won't wash.
You loved me because I was Joe Quinney—a feller
with ambitions, a worker, a man with brains in his
head.  If I failed you, I should expect you to despise
me.  I should feel that I'd had you under false
pretences."

Susan smiled very faintly.  Her voice was curiously
incisive:

"You have a lot to learn yet, Joe, about persons."





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   CHAPTER XII


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   POSY

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   \I

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Lord Mel sent many customers to Soho Square.
He felt sincerely sorry for the little man, and
told everybody that he was a fighter and a striver,
and "straight."  Within a few months Quinney
became the Quinney of old, full of enthusiasm and
swagger, exuding energy, quite confident that he
was soaring and likely to become a spire!  An
American millionaire one morning made a clean
sweep of half the treasures in the sanctuary.
Orders to furnish rooms in a given style with
first-class reproductions came joyously to hand,
and were executed promptly and at a reasonable price.

In due time, also, he became a member of the inner
ring of big dealers.  They tried to "freeze him out"
by inflating prices, often at a serious loss to
themselves, but eventually they were constrained to admit
that the Melchester man was too shrewd for them,
with a knowledge of values which seemed to have
fallen upon him like the dew from heaven.  At any
moment he might stop bidding with an abruptness
very disconcerting to the older men, leaving them
with the *lapin* which they were trying to impose upon
him.

In those early days he found the Caledonian
market a happy hunting-ground, securing immense
quantities of Georgian steel fire-irons, fenders, and
dog-grates, at that time in no demand.  He stored
them in his immense cellars, covering them with a
villainous preparation of his own which defied rust.

"Good stuff to lay down," he remarked.

Afterwards the big dealers asked him how he had
contrived to foresee the coming demand for old cut
glass.  Of this he had bought immense quantities
also.  He answered them in his own fashion.

"Can you tell me why one breed of dog noses out
truffles?"

He bought innumerable spinets, good, bad, and
indifferent, with reckless confidence.  Even Tomlin
remonstrated.

"What are you going to do with them?"

"You'll see," said Quinney.

One more blunder—and the use to which he turned
it—must be chronicled.  By this time he was
recognized as an expert on eighteenth-century furniture.
But he admitted that there were one or two who knew
more than he.  Tomlin, for example, who would drop
in at least once a week for a chat and a glass of brown
sherry.  Upon one of these visits he found Quinney
in a state of enthusiasm over a Chippendale armchair,
unearthed in a small provincial town.  Tomlin
examined it carefully, and pronounced it a fake.

Quinney refused to believe this; but ultimately
conviction that he had been "had" once more was
forced upon him.

"Bar none, it's the best copy I ever saw,"
remarked Tomlin.

Quinney accepted his old friend's chaff with some
chucklings.  Next day, he returned to the provincial
town, and discovered the young cabinet-maker who
had made the fake.  He returned to Soho in triumph,
bringing the cabinet-maker with him.  His name was
James Miggott, and he entered into a contract to
serve Quinney for three years at a salary of two
pounds a week.

"Seems a lot," said Susan.

"He was earning twenty-five bob.  I shall turn
him loose on those spinets."

Most people know something about Quinney's
spinets transformed by the hand of the skilful James
into writing-desks, sideboards, and dressing-tables.
The spinets brought many customers to Soho Square.

"Stock booming?" said Tomlin.

"It is," said Quinney.  He added reflectively: "I
sold a spinet to-day, for which I gave fifteen shillings,
for just the same number o' pounds.  James put in
just one week on it.  That's all, by Gum!"

Some dealers maintain that Quinney made his
reputation with spinets, inasmuch as he sold more of
them for a couple of years than the trade put together.
But he himself believes that his Waterford glass
brought the right customers—the famous collectors
who buy little, but talk and write much.  They liked
Quinney because he was so keen; and he never
grudged the time spent in showing his wares to
non-buyers.

"They tell others," he observed to Susan.  "No
'ad.' can beat that."

He had other dodges to capture trade.  It became
known that he charged nothing for giving his opinion
upon specimens submitted to him.  And he had an
endearing habit of writing to purchasers of the spinets
within a few months or weeks of the deal, offering an
advance on the price paid, a "nice little profit,"
invariably refused.

"Bless 'em!  It warms their hearts to think they've
made a sound investment."

"How surprised and disappointed you'd be, Joe,
if they accepted your offer!"

"Right you are, Susie; but there's little fear of
that, my girl."

When a new customer entered the shop, Quinney
would adopt an air of guileless indifference, which
was likely to provoke the remark:

"Where is Mr. Quinney?"

"I'm Quinney.  Like to have a look round?  You
may see something you fancy."

"That's a nice pie-crust table."

"It's a gem.  Cheap, too."

Then he would give a low whistle, a clear, flute-like
note.  James would appear from below.

"Where's the receipted bill for this table?"

The bill was produced and shown to the stranger.

"See?  Paid four pounds seventeen for it, just
five weeks ago.  Look at the date.  You shall have it
for six pounds, and, by Gum!  I'll make you this offer.
You can return it to me any day you like within a
year, and I'll give you five pound ten for it.  How's
that, as between man and man?"

These seemingly artless methods captivated the
"think-it-overs" and the "rather-nicers," who
frequent curiosity shops in ever-increasing numbers.
Mothers brought daughters to Soho Square to acquire
historical information.  Quinney refused to sell a
Jacobean armchair because it was so useful an
object-lesson to young and inquiring minds.

"Look at that, madam," he would say.  Perhaps
the lady would murmur softly: "It is rather nice,
isn't it?"  And the flapper would exclaim
enthusiastically: "Mumsie, it's perfectly lovely!"

"Much more than that!" Quinney would add,
with mysterious chucklings.  "See that rose?  It's
a Stuart rose.  And that crown on the front splat is
an emblem of loyalty to the Merry Monarch."

"Dear me!  You hear that, Kitty!"

"Pay particular attention to the legs, ladies.  Ball
and paw, the lion's paw, with hair above them,
indicatin' the strength of the Constitootion after
the Restoration.  Chapter of English history, that
chair."

He could embellish such simple themes according
to fancy, and with due regard for the patience of his
listener.  To Susan he spoke of these intellectual
exercises as "my little song and dance."



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Meanwhile, Posy was growing up, becoming a tall,
slender, pretty girl.  She attended a day-school in
Orchard Street—a select seminary for young ladies.
Susan accompanied her to and from Orchard Street.
By this time she had accepted, with a serenity largely
temperamental, the fate allotted to her.  Once more
Quinney was absorbed in his business.  Adversity
had brought husband and wife together, prosperity
sundered them.  Very rarely does it happen that a
successful man can spare time to spend on his wife.
The charming slackers make the most congenial
mates.  Compensation has thus ordained it, wherein
lie tragedy and comedy.  Many women, to the end of
their lives, are incapable of realizing this elementary
fact.  They want their husbands to climb high—the
higher the better; they understand, perhaps more
clearly than men, what can be seen and enjoyed from
the tops; they pluck, often as a matter of course,
and gobble up the grapes of Eschol, but they refuse
to accept the inevitable penalties of supreme
endeavour.  Their husbands return to them almost
foundered, fit only to eat and sleep.  In the strenuous
competition of to-day what else is possible?

Susan did not complain, but then she belonged to
the generation who accepted with pious resignation
life as it is.  Indeed, she accounted herself singularly
fortunate, and whenever the present seemed dreary
she fortified herself by thinking of a rosy past, or
projected herself into an enchanted future, when he
and she, Darby and Joan, would wander hand in
hand to some garden of sleep, some drowsy country
churchyard, where they would lie down together to
await an ampler and happier intercourse in the life
beyond.

Her interest in persons as opposed to things
quickened with the growth of her child.  Posy became to
her what a Chelsea shepherdess modelled by Roubillac
was to Quinney—a bit of wonderful porcelain to be
enshrined, a museum piece!  The maternal instincts
budded and bloomed the more bravely because
conjugal emotion was denied full expression.  She faced
unflinchingly the conviction that Posy must marry
and leave her.  By that time Joe might be more
ready to enjoy the fruits of labour.  For the moment,
then, her husband was pigeon-holed.  He remained
at the back of her mind, at the bottom of her heart,
masked by that sprightly creature, his daughter.

Posy accepted Susan's love as a matter of course.



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   \III

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For her years—she was just fifteen—the girl
exhibited a precocious intelligence and an essentially
masculine shrewdness which distinguished her sire.
In the girl's presence Quinney observed no reticences.
Invariably he discussed, with boyish zest and
volubility, the day's trafficking.  Posy was not allowed to
potter about the shop, but she ran at will in and out
of the sanctuary, and she knew the value of every
"gem" in it, and its history.  Susan dared not
interfere, but she prayed that Joe's child might not be
tempted to worship false gods.  In an artless fashion
she attempted to inculcate a taste for high romance.
She read aloud *Ivanhoe*, and was much distressed by
Posy's comments upon certain aspects of the tale.

"The men had a good time, but the women's lives
must have been deadly.  I'm jolly glad that I'm a
twen-center!"  She continued fluently: "You have
a rotten time, mummie."

"My dear!"

"But you do.  I couldn't stick your life!"

She used slang freely, protesting, when rebuked,
that she picked it up from the lips of her chum, Ethel
Honeybun, who was exalted as the daughter of a
Member of Parliament.  Susan's silence encouraged
her to go on:

"I want all the fun I can get.  What fun have you
had?  You sew a lot, you read aloud to me, you take
me to school—although I'm quite able to go alone—you
order the meals, you are father's slave."

"I won't have you say that!"

"But it's true."

"I love your father.  I married for love.  I am
happy and contented in my own home.  I have no
patience with these new-fangled notions about
women's rights and women's wrongs."

"Ethel says——"

"I don't wish to hear what Ethel says.  Fun,
indeed!  Why, child, I've had you."

"Was that fun?"  She spoke seriously, fixing her
mother with a pair of clear, grey eyes.  "Some girls
love dolls.  Dolls rather bored me.  Is it fun to mess
about with a baby, wash it and dress it, and take it
out in a pram?  I call hockey fun."

"You'll lose a front tooth some fine day.  That
will be great fun."

"Let's be perfectly calm.  I love talking things
out.  You don't.  I mean to say you try to hide your
real self from me.  Didn't you think and talk as I do
when you were a girl?"

"Most certainly not!"

"You are an old-fashioned darling, and I love you
for it!  I shouldn't like you to talk as Mrs. Honeybun
does.  She says you and father spoil me.  I wonder if
that's true.  She gives Ethel beans sometimes, and
Ethel answers back as if they were equals.  It would
give Granny a fit to hear her!"

Twice a year Posy paid a ceremonial visit to
Mrs. Biddlecombe.  The old lady was very fond of her,
although she sniffed at her upbringing.  Posy, indeed,
had won a moral victory during her first visit, shortly
after the Quinneys moved to London.  At the end of
three days Mrs. Biddlecombe had said majestically
to the child:

"I hope you're enjoying yourself, my dear!"

"I'm not," said Posy, with shocking candour.

"Why not?" demanded the astonished grandmother.

"Because you've been so wonnerful peevish."

"Bless my soul, what next!  Well, well, you are a
pert little maid, but I must try to be more agreeable."

Posy eyed her reflectively.

"I dare say," she murmured, "that I should be
wonnerful peevish too, if I was very, very old."

Quinney, against Susan's wishes and protests,
insisted that the child should be brought up "as a
little princess."  She was given many so-called
advantages.  She was taught to play the piano indifferently
well; she danced beautifully; she could chatter
French, and was now struggling with German.

"Spare no expense," said Quinney magnificently.



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   \IV

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His intimate relations with the growing girl
remained constant.  He would make the same remarks,
pinch her blooming cheeks, pat her head, and kiss
her smooth forehead.

"How's my pet this morning?"

"Quite all right, daddy, thank you."

"Gettin' on nicely with your lessons?"

"Oh yes."

Once, when she was five years old, he had soundly
smacked her.  The sprite had discovered the efficacy
of tears as a solvent of difficulties.  Whenever her
little will was crossed she howled.  She howled as if
she enjoyed it, and her father was shrewd enough to
know this.  One morning he caught her up, laid her
across his knee, and spanked her till his hand ached.
Next day Posy smiled very sweetly at him, and said
reproachfully:

"Daddy pank a Posy too hard."

But she stopped howling.

He was well pleased when she began to make
friends with people like the Honeybuns.  Honeybun
was an ubiquitous Socialist who slept at Clapham.
Like Quinney, he had soared.  The two men had
nothing in common except this, but it was a bond
between them.  Mrs. Honeybun had been a governess
in the family of a nobleman.  She, too, had soared
into an empyrean of advanced thinkers and workers.
Familiarity with the titled classes had bred contempt
for them.  In and out of season she denounced the
luxury and indolence of an effete aristocracy.  Her
own household was managed abominably.  She
preached and practised the virtues of an Edenic diet.
Butcher's meat was spoken of scathingly as the source
of most physical and moral infirmities.  Apart from
this prejudice against flesh-pots and aristocrats, she
was a kindly woman, over-zealous as a reformer,
displaying a too tempestuous petticoat, but burning
with ardour to ameliorate the condition of the poor
and oppressed.

She exercised an enormous influence over Posy.

And it is not easy to analyse this influence, which,
however well meant, was not entirely for good.
Mrs. Honeybun was clever enough to admit that there can
be no great gain without an appreciable loss.  The
only thing that mattered was the satisfaction of being
able to affirm that the gain outweighed the loss.  Her
favourite hobby, which she rode mercilessly, was the
necessity of Self-expression, the revealing of the Ego,
the essential Spirit loosed from the bondage of the
flesh.

Unhappily, to understand the Honeybun philosophy,
a mosaic of all creeds, it became necessary to
master the "patter."  The word is perhaps offensive,
but it describes exactly the amazing jargon habitually
in the mouths of the exponents of the New
Revelation.  It is rather dangerous, for example, to
tell a young girl adored by her parents that she must
begin by loving Herself.  Properly assimilated, the
injunction is Socratic.  Posy accepted it literally.
Mrs. Honeybun, of course, explained what she meant,
but at such length, with such divagations and
irrelevancies, that Posy soon became bored.  She told
herself that Ethel's mother was a dear, an
understanding person, tremendously clever and modern,
a twen-center!  She could obey this kind and fluent
teacher with hearty goodwill.  It was so delightfully
easy to begin with loving one's Ego.

Susan, it may be imagined, heard too much and
too often of the Honeybuns; and she smiled when
she discovered that the meals were "skimpy."  Posy
had a healthy appetite not to be satisfied with nut
cutlets or vegetable pie badly cooked and served at
odd hours.  No servant stayed long with the Honeybuns,
because the remains of cold "vegy" pie were
expected to be consumed at "elevenses."  Susan
commented slily on this.

"Your friend, Mrs. Honeybun, seemingly, manages
everything and everybody except her own house
and her own servants."

To this Posy fervently replied:

"The spiritual food in that house is simply
wonderful!"

Before many weeks had passed Susan was given
an opportunity of testing the truth of this statement.
Mrs. Biddlecombe invited Posy to spend a fortnight
in Melchester—a precious fortnight out of the
mid-summer holidays.  Ethel, some twenty-four hours
later, entreated her friend to join the Honeybun
family at Ramsgate.  Much to Susan's dismay Posy
announced her intention of going to Ramsgate.

"It's deadly dull at Melchester, mummie, and just
think what a privilege it is, what an opportunity to
spend a fortnight with Ethel's mother."

To her astonishment, Ethel's mother placed a
different interpretation upon the opportunity.

"Of course, you will go to your grandmother, and
I shall expect you to be charming to the old lady.
In the nature of things, you can't pay her many
more visits.  Make this one a fragrant and imperishable
memory.  Express what is your true self by
your devotion to an aged and apparently irritable
grandmother."

Posy obeyed, with a result which had special
bearing on events duly to be chronicled.
Mrs. Biddlecombe, captivated by the sweetness and
dutifulness of one whom she had hitherto regarded as a
spoiled child, altered her will, leaving everything
she possessed to Posy.  Susan, she was aware, would
be adequately provided for.  Perhaps it tickled an
elementary sense of humour to make Posy independent
of a too autocratic father.





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   CHAPTER XIII


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   RUCTIONS

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   \I

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If this veracious chronicle were to be considered as a
novel written for a purpose, or even what critics term
"a serious contribution to contemporary literature,"
it might be necessary to write at greater length
concerning the Honeybun philosophy.  Enough, however,
has been said to indicate the startling—startling,
that is to say, to a young mind—contrast
between the Quinney practices and the Honeybun
precepts.  Substantial meals, admirably cooked,
were eaten at regular hours in Soho Square, and the
table talk was as material as the roast and boiled.
Quinney, before his young daughter, exulted honestly
in his hard-won success.  The gospel of work was
preached in both houses—too insistently,
perhaps—but an Atlantic roared between them.

For some months Posy was shrewd enough to digest
the Honeybun teaching in silence.  She prattled away
to her mother, well aware that her girlish confidence
would not be repeated to her father.  Susan, indeed,
served as a lay figure upon which she could drape
new ideas and confections.  Susan was a born listener.
In Lavender Gardens the art of talking was practised
by every member of the family simultaneously.
Nobody listened, except Posy, who hoped that the
day would soon come when she might be considered
worthy to join the magnificent chorus.  For the
moment her mind was expanding.  Under her father's
tutelage, she was acquiring a knowledge of beautiful
things, masterpieces of handicraft; in Lavender
Gardens, where no lavender grew, beautiful ideas,
Utopian schemes for the regeneration of all woman-kind,
were poured unstintingly into her brain-cells.

So far, so good!

Those of us who clamour for results, who yearn to
tabulate and classify inevitable consequences, will
have prepared themselves for ructions.  Quinney was
a fighter, a fighter for his own hand.  The Honeybuns
fought quite as aggressively on behalf of others.  It
is a nice point for moralists to consider whether or not
a woman like Mrs. Honeybun is justified in filling the
mind of a young girl with more or less disturbing
theories, thinly disguised as cardinal principles,
which must sooner or later clash seriously with home
teaching.  Mrs. Honeybun had no qualms on the
subject, being too ardent a propagandist to consider
effects when causes were so dear to her.  In her small
hall, thick with dust from the feet of many pilgrims,
hung a brilliantly illuminated text, purple and gold
upon vellum:

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   "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

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She appropriated enthusiastically any text out of
the New Testament which could serve her purpose.
Texts from the same source, which might be used
against that purpose, were triumphantly capped by
convincing quotations from the Veda, or the Koran,
or the writings of Confucius.  The accomplished lady
was armed *cap-à-pie* with the coagulated wisdom of
the ages.

Posy's first encounter with her father took place,
by the luck of things, at a moment when the little
man had just concluded a more than usually successful
deal with a millionaire who collected things he did
not understand.  All big dealers have exceptional
days and weeks when Fortune comes to them with
both hands full.  A clean sweep of many "gems"
had been accomplished—what Quinney called a "mop
up."  His mind naturally was concentrated upon
filling the gaps in the sanctuary with other gems of
even purer ray serene.  Posy confided to Ethel that
at such moments her daddy "swanked."  The
temptation to make a swanker "sit up" under the
process described in Lavender Gardens as "seeing
things in their true proportion" was irresistible to
a young and ardent acolyte.  Posy conceived it
to be her duty, her mission, to lead her parents
to the light.  Admittedly, they wallowed in outer
darkness.

She tackled her father at breakfast, which, as a
rule, he gobbled up in silence, thinking of the day's
work ahead.  A wiser than she would have selected
the postprandial hour, when Nicotina clouds the air
of controversy with beneficent and soothing vapours.
Quinney had mentioned curtly that he was going to
attend a sale at Christopher's.  Whereupon Posy
threw this bomb:

"Daddy, dear, when are you going to retire from
active business?"

Quinney stared at his daughter.  Her intelligent
eyes were sparkling; in her delicately-cut nostrils
titillated the dust of battle.

"Retire from—business?"

"Haven't you made enough?"

Susan looked frightened, but she had anticipated a
conflict between two strong wills, and was acutely
sensible of her own impotence to prevent it.

"Ho!  Now, what do you call enough, my girl?"

Posy was prepared to answer this.  She riposted
swiftly:

"Haven't we enough to live on decently, and
something to spare for others?"

"We?"  His voice took a sharper inflection.
"How much have you laid by, missie?"

The sharpness and veiled impatience of her tone
matched his as she answered:

"You know what I mean."

"I don't.  What I've made is mine—my very own.
I can do what I like with it."

"Oh, father!"

"Oh, father!"  He mimicked her cleverly.  "Do
you have the sauce to sit there and tell me, your
father, that what I've made isn't mine?"

Posy quoted Mrs. Honeybun with overwhelming effect.

"You are a trustee for what you hold, accountable
for every penny."

"Accountable—to you?"

He leaned forward, forgetting his bacon, which he
liked frizzlingly hot.

"Accountable to Society and God."

"Ho!  Then suppose you leave me, my young
chick, to account in my own way to Society and God?"

Posy blushed.  Let us not label her rashly as a
prig.  The nymph Echo must have repeated silly
remarks in her time.  Posy said slowly, speaking with
conviction:

"I am part of Society, and I am part of what we
call, for want of a better word, God."

Susan murmured warningly:

"That will do, Posy."

"No, it won't!" shouted Quinney.  "We'll have
this out here and now.  What d'ye mean?  What the
devil d'ye mean?  Are you dotty?  Why do you
spring this on me?  What's the game?  'Ave you
been a-listening to blasphemous agitators a-spoutin'
rubbish in 'Yde Park?"

"No."

"Then where does she get it from?"  He appealed
to Susan with frantic gestures.  "You hear her,
mother.  Where does she get this from?  Answer me!"

"Such talk is in the air, Joe," Susan replied feebly.
Explosions lacerated her ears.  She had come to
place an inordinate value upon peace and quiet.

"In the air!  By Gum! she's been breathing the
wrong air."  Inspiration gripped and shook him.
"Gosh!  You got this from that dirty Socialist,
Honeybun.  Don't deny it!  These are his notions.
But I never thought he'd poison your young mind
with 'em."

Posy said with dignity:

"Mr. Honeybun is the best man I know.  He
practises what he preaches; he lives in and for
others.  He uses his talents, regardless of his own
comfort and worldly prosperity, to ameliorate the
lot of the poor and oppressed."

Echo again.

"Poor and oppressed!  Ameliorate!  What a
talker!  Now, look ye here, young Posy, I'm going
to deal squarely by you.  I'm square to the four
winds of Heaven, I am!  You and I have got to
understand each other—see?  You're as green as the
grass, but you do 'ave some of my brains.  I ain't
a-goin' to argue with you for one minute.  Don't
think it!  I've forgotten more than you ever knew.
Talk is the cheapest thing in London, but knaves like
Honeybun buy fools with it.  Don't you toss your
head!  You've made your pore dear mother cry, and
you've taken away father's appetite.  A nice morning's
work.  Now, listen!  No more Honeybunning!  You
hear me?"

"Everybody in the house can hear you."

"More sauce!  You stand up, miss!"

They rose together, confronting each other.  Quinney's
scrubby red hair was on end with rage; Posy's
small bosom heaved tumultuously.  Of late the girl
had taken to the wearing of cheap beads and blouses
cut low in the neck.  Ethel had lamentable taste,
but, according to her mother, it was expedient that
maidens should work out their own salvation in such
matters without parental interference.  Quinney
scowled at the beads and the white, rounded neck.

"Take off that rubbish!"

"Ethel gave them to me."

"Take 'em off quick!  Mother, you see to it that
she wears respectable collars!"

Posy removed two strings of large amethystine
beads.  Quinney took them and hurled them into the
fireplace.  Tears rolled down Posy's blooming cheeks.
She was unaccustomed to violence—a primitive
weapon not to be despised by modern man.

"Them beads," said Quinney, who reverted to the
diction of his youth when excited, "is beastly—sinfully
beastly!  They stand for all that I despise;
they stand for the cheap, trashy talk which you've
been defilin' your mind with.  What you need is a
good spankin'.  Now, mother, I leave Miss Impudence
with you.  Mark well what I say.  No more Honeybunning!"



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   \II

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It is significant that Quinney neglected his business
that memorable morning in the interests of a child
who was beginning to believe that she occupied a
back seat in her father's mind.  After leaving the
dining-room, he clapped on his hat, and betook
himself straightway to St. James's Square.  There was
only one man in all London to whom he could go for
honest advice, and fortunately he happened to be in
town for the season.

Lord Mel received him graciously.

Quinney stated his case quietly.  During the course
of the narrative Lord Mel smiled more than once, but
his sympathies were entirely with the father, for he
had endured, not too patiently, somewhat similar
scenes with his own daughters.  Moreover, he hated
Honeybun, whom he had denounced in the Upper
Chamber as a mischievous and unscrupulous demagogue.

Quinney ended upon a high note of interrogation:

"What shall I do with her, my lord?"

Lord Mel considered the question, trying to stand
upright in the shoes of his former tenant.  It is a
hopeful sign of the times that such magnates do
descend from their pedestals, and attempt, with a
certain measure of success, to see eye to eye with the
groundlings.

"I prescribe a change of diet, my dear fellow.
We must both face the disconcerting fact that girls
to-day need special treatment.  Mrs. Honeybun is
one of the Shrieking Sisterhood.  I have heard her
shriek—she does it effectively.  Noise appeals to the
very young.  I suggest removing Posy from Orchard
Street, and sending her to a carefully conducted
boarding school, where plenty of fresh air and exercise
will soon blow these ideas out of her pretty head.
There are dozens of such schools scattered along our
south coast."

"Send her away from me and her mother?"

"Drastic, I admit, but you have put it admirably.
'No more Honeybunning!'  Keep her in London,
and she may Honeybun on the sly.  Will you
entrust this little matter of finding a suitable school
to me?"

"Your lordship is a real friend."

"I will speak to my lady."

"Expense don't matter," said Quinney earnestly.
"I want my daughter to have the best, because, my
lord, as a young feller, I had the worst.  No education
at all!  Posy's a wonderful talker!  She'd have
downed me this morning if I'd let her.  She talks
like—like——"

"Like Honeybun, eh?"

"If I wasn't sittin' in your lordship's library, I
should damn that dirty dog!"

"Such fellows thrive on abuse.  That is their
weapon.  We must use others—ridicule, for example.
How old is your girl?"

"Nearly sixteen."

"Good!  You have nipped a cankered bud in time.
You shall hear from me within twenty-four hours,
Let me show you an interesting bit of Crown Derby
*bisque*."  He paused, and added derisively: "You
know, Quinney, there are moments when my things
appeal to me tremendously.  Persons are
disappointing, but every day I discover fresh beauties in my
china cabinets."

"Same here," said Quinney, with enthusiasm.



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   \III

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Accordingly, Posy was dispatched to a boarding
school at Bexhill-on-Sea, kept by two gentlewomen
of the right sort, sensible, up-to-date, highly-trained
teachers, who ruled well and wisely over some twenty
girls, the daughters, for the most part, of hard-working,
professional men.  Here we will leave Posy in
good company.  She was feeling sore and humiliated
after an unconditional surrender; but her sense of
impotence soon passed away.  She loved her whimsical
father and desired to please him, although she
writhed—as he had writhed—under the heel of
parental discipline.  She began to study with
assiduity, and was highly commended.



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   \IV

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Meanwhile, Susan and Quinney were left alone for
the first time since Posy's birth.  Susan rejoiced in
secret.  She had her Joe to herself.  Posy was in the
habit of dusting the more valuable bits of china in
the sanctuary, and cleaning the old glass.  Susan
undertook these small duties, and pottered in and
out of the sanctuary at all hours.  Quinney threw
crumbs of talk to her, but he refused emphatically
her timid request to serve him once more as a
saleswoman.  At his wish, she rarely entered the shop
below.  James Miggott was in charge of that.  Quinney
was engrossed with the buying and selling of
"stuff"; he attended to an immense correspondence,
writing all his letters in the sanctuary, where he could
pause from his labours to suck fresh energy from the
contemplation of his treasures.  The prices he paid
for some of them terrified Susan, although she knew
that he made few mistakes and immense profits.
She remarked that his reluctance to part with the
finest specimens had become almost a monomania.
There was a lacquer cabinet; in particular, standing
upon a richly gilded Charles the Second stand.
Quinney had paid eight hundred pounds for it, and he had
been offered a thousand guineas within six months.
He confessed to Susan that he couldn't live without
it.  The cabinet was flanked by an incised lacquer
screen, a miracle of Chinese workmanship.  He
refused a handsome profit on that.  Susan asked
herself:

"Does he worship these false gods?  Would he
miss that cabinet more than he would miss me?"

She noticed, too, that he was overworked.  During
his many absences from home letters would accumulate.
To answer them he rose earlier and went to bed
later, deaf to her remonstrance.  He promised to
engage a typist and stenographer—some day.

Nevertheless, this was a pleasant time, but it
lasted only a few months.  Mrs. Biddlecombe took
to her bed again.  Susan was summoned to Melchester.
The old lady was really dying, but she took her time
about it.  Susan ministered to her till the end.

After the funeral, when she returned to Soho
Square, a surprise awaited her.  Quinney had fulfilled
his promise.  In the sanctuary, at a beautiful
Carlton desk, sat Miss Mabel Dredge, a young and
attractive woman, the typist and stenographer.
Poor Susan experienced tearing pangs of jealousy
when she beheld her, but Quinney's treatment of the
stranger was reassuring.  Obviously, he regarded
Miss Dredge as a machine.

And his unaffected delight over Susan's return
home was positively rejuvenating.





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.. _`JAMES MIGGOTT`:

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   CHAPTER XIV


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   JAMES MIGGOTT

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   \I

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In common with other great men who have achieved
success, Quinney was endowed with a Napoleonic
faculty of picking the right men to serve him.  Having
done so, he treated them generously, so that they
remained in his service, loath to risk a change for the
worse.  He paid good wages, and was complaisant
in the matter of holidays.

James Miggott had been his most fortunate
discovery.  James was "brainy" (we quote Quinney),
ambitious, healthy, and an artist in his line: the
repairing of valuable old furniture.  Also he was
good-looking, which counted with his employer.  A
few weeks after joining the establishment it had been
arranged that he should sleep in a comfortable room
in the basement, and take his meals at a restaurant
in Old Compton Street.  During his provincial
circuits Quinney liked to know that a man was in charge
of the house at night.  James's habits, apparently,
were as regular as his features.

By this time he had come to be regarded as
foreman.  Bit by bit he had won Quinney's entire
confidence.  The master talked to the man more freely
than he talked to Susan about everything connected
with his business.  James listened attentively, made
occasionally some happy suggestion, and betrayed
no signs of a swollen head.  A natural inflation might
have been expected.  Quinney's eyes failed to detect
it.  Moreover, Susan liked him, and respected him.
He attended Divine service on Sundays; he ate and
drank in moderation; he was scrupulously neat in
appearance; he had received a sound education, and
expressed himself well in good English.  Truly a
paragon!

Quinney had secured Miss Mabel Dredge after his
own fashion.  Hitherto his typewriting had been
done by a firm which employed a score of typists.
The head of that firm happened to be a lady of great
intelligence and energy, the widow of a stockbroker
who had died bankrupt.  Quinney knew about her,
liked and admired her, and told her so in his
whimsical way.  She liked and respected Quinney.  Also,
by an odd coincidence, Mrs. Frankland had begun
her struggle for existence in London at the time when
Quinney left Melchester.  They had compared notes;
each had undergone thwackings.  When Mrs. Frankland
began to make money she spent most of it at
Quinneys'.  Amongst other bits, she had bought a
spinet—cheap.  Accordingly, when Quinney entreated
her to find a competent young woman, she generously
offered him the pick of her establishment.

Mabel Dredge went with alacrity, glad to escape
from a small table in a large room, not too well
ventilated.  She intended, from the first, to give
satisfaction, to "hold down" the new job.  She was tall and
dark, with a clear, colourless skin, and a rather
full-lipped mouth, which indicated appreciation of the
good things in life.  Mrs. Frankland had said to her:

"You will earn a bigger salary, Mabel, and Mr. Quinney
won't make love to you."

Mabel Dredge smiled pensively.  She could take
care of herself, and she had no reason to suppose that
she was susceptible.  Men had made love to her, but
they were the wrong men.  She had refused kind
invitations to lunch or dine at smart restaurants.
When she walked home after the day's work she
encountered smiles upon the faces of well-dressed
loafers.  No answering smile on her lips encouraged
these dear-stalkers to address her.  But, deep down
in her heart, was a joyous and thrilling conviction
that she was desirable.  The male passers-by who did
not smile aroused unhappy qualms.  Was she losing
her looks?  Was she growing old?  Could it be
possible that she might die an old maid?

Upon the morning when she appeared in Soho
Square Quinney sent for James.  He said abruptly:

"James Miggott will show you round.  If you
want to know anything, go to him.  Don't ask me
foolish questions, because that makes me lose my
hair; and I ain't got any to lose that way.  See?"

"Certainly, sir."

"Dessay he'll tell you where you can get a plate
of roast beef in the middle of the day, between one
and two.  You have an hour off then.  What did
Mrs. Frankland allow you?"

"Forty minutes."

"Just so.  You'll find me easy to get along with,
if you do your duty.  James will tell you that I'm a
remarkable man.  I call him James, and I shall call
you Mabel.  It saves time, and time's money.  You
can scoot off with James."

The pair disappeared.  Quinney's eyes twinkled.
He was thinking of Susan, and recalling that
memorable afternoon when he kissed her for the first time
behind the parlour-door in Laburnum Row.



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   \II

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We have mentioned James Miggott's almost
magical powers of transforming eighteenth-century
spinets into desks and dressing-tables.  These useful
and ornamental pieces of furniture were sold as
converted spinets, and they commanded a handsome
price because the transformation was achieved with
such consummate art.  Even experts were at a loss
to point out the difference between what was
originally old and what had been added.  James had access
to Quinney's collection of mahogany—the broken
chairs, tables, beds, doors, and bureaux which the
little man had bought for a song of sixpence before
mahogany leapt again into fashion.  The collection
had begun in Melchester, and Quinney was always
adding to it.  In it might be found exquisitely carved
splats and rails and ball-and-claw legs, many of them
by the hand of the great craftsmen—Chippendale,
Sheraton, Hepplewhite, and Adam.  One cellar and
two attics were full of these interesting relics.

Shortly after James's appearance in Soho Square
Quinney succumbed to the temptation of doctoring
"cripples," which besets most honest dealers in
antique furniture.  He had, as we know, pledged
himself not to sell faked specimens of china or faked
old oak, except as such.  And he had stuck to the
strict letter of this promise, thereby securing many
customers, and winning their confidence.  It had
paid him to be honest.  With sorrowful reluctance
we must give some account of his divagations from
the straight and narrow way.

The temptation assailed Quinney with especial
virulence, because "cripples" of high degree
appealed to him quite as strongly as, let us say, a
desperately injured sprig of nobility, battered to bits
in a motor accident, may appeal to the skill and
patience of a famous surgeon.  When Quinney found
a genuine Chippendale chair *in articulo mortis*, he
could sit down and weep beside it.  To restore it to
health and beauty became a labour of love, almost a
duty.  He had not, of course, the technical skill for
such work; and he had not found any cabinet-maker
who was absolutely the equal of the Minihy
man till he discovered James Miggott.  The first
important task assigned to James was the mending
of an elaborately carved Chippendale settee, a
museum piece.  James threw his heart and his head
into the job; and, within the year, that settee was
sold at Christopher's, after examination by experts,
as an untouched and perfect specimen.  Quinney was
no party to this fraud, for the settee had never
belonged to him, but it opened his eyes to the
possibilities of patching "cripples."  And every week he
was being offered these "cripples."  The finest
specimens, by the best craftsmen, are rare; the full
sets of eight incomparable chairs, for instance, come
but seldom into the open market.  But the "cripples"
may be found in any cottage in the kingdom, fallen
from the high estate of some stately saloon to the
attic of a servant.

Tom Tomlin was one of the very few who saw the
Chippendale settee after James had restored it.
Within a few days he attempted to lure the young
man from Soho Square, but James refused an offer
of a larger salary, and elected to stay with Quinney.
Possibly he mistrusted Tomlin, whose general
appearance was far from prepossessing.  Tomlin,
however, was not easily baffled.  He seized an early
opportunity of speaking privately to Quinney.

"Joe," he said, "this young feller is the goods.
He can do the trick."

"Do what trick?"

Tomlin winked.

"Any trick, I take it, known to our trade.  The
very finest faker of old furniture I ever came across.
Now, as between man and man, are you going to
make a right and proper use of him?"

"What d'ye mean, Tom?"

"Tchah!  You know well enough what I mean.
Why beat about the bush with an old friend?  Are
you going to turn this young man loose amongst that
old stuff you've collected?"

Quinney laughed, shaking his head.

"Am I going to let James Miggott fake up all that
old stuff?  No, by Gum!  No!"

"But, damn it!  Why not?"

"Several reasons.  One'll do.  I've sworn solemn
not to sell fakes unless they're labelled as such."

"Of all the silly rot——"

"There it is."

Tomlin went away, but he returned next day, and
asked for a glass of brown sherry.  Quinney had one,
too.

"I've a proposition to make," said Tomlin.
"You've got a small gold mine in this Miggott, but
you don't mean to work him properly.  Well, let me
do it."

"How?"

"Suppose I send you 'cripples' to be mended.
Any objections to that?"

"None."

"This young Miggott mends 'em, and puts in his
best licks on 'em too.  Then you send 'em back to
me."

"That all?"

Tomlin winked.

"Do you want to know any more?  Is it your
business to inquire what becomes of the stuff after
you've doctored it?  And, mind you, I shall pay high
for the doctorin'.  You leave that to me.  You won't
be disappointed with my cheques."

Let it be remembered, although we hold no brief
for Quinney, that this subtle temptation assailed him
shortly after his bludgeonings, when he was tingling
with impatience to "get even" with the Londoners
who had "downed" him.

In fine, he accepted Tomlin's offer.

Quinney has since confessed that at first he was
very uneasy, honesty having become a pleasant and
profitable habit.  There were moments when he
envied moral idiots like Tomlin, stout, smiling,
red-faced sinners, who positively wallowed and gloried in
sinfulness.  Tomlin pursued pleasure upon any and
every path.  He went racing, attended football
matches, was a patron of the Drama and the Ring,
ate and drank immoderately, made no pretence of
being faithful to Mrs. Tomlin, or honest with the
majority of his customers.  His amazing knowledge of
Oriental porcelain had given him an international
reputation.  He never attempted to deceive the
experts, and, in consequence, was quoted as a high
authority in such papers as *The Collector* and *Curios*.
He knew exactly what his customers needed, and was
the cleverest salesman in the kingdom.  Less successful
dealers affirmed that the devil took especial care
of Tom Tomlin.



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   \III

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Quinney had no reason to complain of Tomlin's
cheques.  He knew that his old friend was being
scrupulously square, and sharing big profits with him.
Tomlin had customers from the Argentine, from the
Brazils, from all parts of the earth where fortunes are
made and spent swiftly.  The "cripples" disappeared
mysteriously, and were never heard of again.  By
this time Tomlin had moved to his famous premises
in Bond Street.  He had not achieved the position of
Mr. Lark, because he lacked that great man's education
and polish, but he was quite the equal of Mr. Bundy.

It is important to mention that Tomlin sent very
few cripples to Soho Square.  Nor were they delivered
by his vans.  They arrived unexpectedly from
provincial towns; they were invariably authentic
specimens, the finest "stuff."  No understrapper
beheld them.  James carried them tenderly to his
operating theatre, whence they emerged pale of
complexion, but sound in limb.  Daily massage followed,
innumerable rubbings.  Then Tomlin would drop in,
and nudge Quinney, and chuckle.  The two dealers
would pull out their glasses and examine the patient
with meticulous zeal.  James would watch them with
a slightly derisive smile upon his handsome face.  At
the end of his three years' engagement Quinney
raised his salary to three pounds a week.  The little
man expected an extravagant expression of gratitude,
but he didn't get it.  At times James's smile
puzzled him.



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   \IV

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Posy remained at Bexhill-on-Sea till she was
eighteen.  Her friendship for the Honeybuns had
been slowly extinguished.  Mrs. Honeybun, who
mortified everything in her thin body except pride,
refused peremptorily to see Posy against the expressed
wish of her father.  Posy wrote to Ethel long
screeds answered with enthusiasm at first and then
perfunctorily.  At the end of the year the girls drifted
apart.

Posy, however, made other friends.  When she
came home for her first holidays, Quinney and Susan
conspired together to make things pleasant for her.
She had plenty of pocket money.  Susan and she
went to many plays, many concerts, all the good
shows.  Quinney rubbed his hands and chuckled,
but he declined to accompany them.

The two years of school passed with astonishing
swiftness; and the improvement to Posy quickened
a lively gratitude in Quinney to Lord Mel.  She
developed into a charming young woman, irresponsible
as yet, but a joyous creature, easy to please and
be pleased.  Quinney was delighted with her.  He
told her solemnly:

"My poppet, you're a perfect lady; yes, you are."

Posy went into peals of laughter.

"Daddy, how funny you are!"

This talk took place upon the day that Posy said
good-bye to her school-fellows, and returned home as
a more or less finished product of the boarding-school
system.

"Funny?  Me?  I don't feel funny, my pretty,
when I look at you.  I feel proud.  One way and
t'other I suppose you've cost me nigh upon four
thousand pounds!"

"Daddy, dear!  Not as much as that, surely?"

Quinney cocked his head at a sharp angle, while he
computed certain sums.

"I figure it out in this way," he said slowly.  "In
hard cash you stand me in about fifteen hundred
spread over the last ten years.  Now, if I'd stuffed
that amount into Waterford glass, I could have
cleaned up five thousand at least.  See?"

"I see," said Posy, and laughed again.

"The question now is," continued Quinney, absorbed
in admiration of her delicate colouring,
"what the 'ell am I going to do with such a fancy
piece?"

"Father!" exclaimed Susan.  "Do please try to
remember that you're not talking to Mr. Tomlin."

"When I feel strongly," replied Quinney simply,
"I just have to use strong language.  Posy has come
home to what?"

"She's come home, Joe.  That's enough.  Why
bother about anything else?"

"Because I'm the bothering sort, old dear—that's
why.  I look ahead.  I count my chickens before
they're hatched."

Susan said slily:

"Yes, you made sure that this chicken was going
to be hatched a boy."

The three laughed.  It was a pleasant moment of
compensation for long years of anxiety and toil.
Each had worked for it.  Posy had submitted, not
without kickings and prickings, to strict discipline;
Quinney, from the child's birth, had determined that
the stream must rise higher than its source; Susan,
serenely hopeful about the future, had worried
unceasingly over the present, concerned about petty
ailments, the putting on and off of suitable
under-linen, and so forth.

"Don't bother about me, daddy; I'm all right."

"By Gum, you are!  That's why I bother.  In my
experience it's the right bits that get smashed!"



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Perhaps nobody was more surprised at the change
in Posy than James Miggott.  Hitherto the young
lady, home for the holidays, had ignored him, not
purposely—she was too kindhearted for that—but
with a genuine unconsciousness of giving offence.
He was part and parcel of what she least liked in her
father's house, the shop.  Not for an instant was she
ashamed of being the daughter of a dealer in antiques,
who owned a shop; what exasperated her was the
conviction that the shop owned him, that he had
become the slave of his business.  The Honeybuns
had rubbed into her plastic mind that the unpardonable
sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost, the root-cause
of ruin to nations and individuals, began and
ended with the lust of accumulating material things.
Nothing moved Mrs. Honeybun to more fervent and
eloquent speech than the text: "Lay not up
treasures upon earth!"  At Bexhill-on-Sea Posy had
heard this same injunction upon the lips of a local
Chrysostom, to whom she listened enthusiastically
every Sunday morning.  The text had a personal
application, because she never heard it, or a variant
on it, without thinking of the sanctuary and her
father's "gems," apostrophized by Susan as "sticks
and stones."  Posy admired beautiful things, but if
they were very costly she seemed to have a curious
fear of them.  Before she was born, Susan had
experienced strongly the same fear of her Joe's idols.

She was, however, discreet enough to conceal this
from her father.  He took her to Christopher's, where
a miraculous piece of reticulated K'ang He was on
exhibition, prior to sale.  It was an incense-box
decorated with figures of the eight Immortals in
brilliant enamels.  Metaphorically, Quinney went
down on his knees before it.  Next day he told Posy
that it had fetched seven thousand guineas!  He
stared at her sharply, because she showed no
enthusiasm.

James Miggott beheld her as Aphrodite fresh from
the sea.  Poor Mabel Dredge appeared sallow beside
her, tired and spent after a hot July.  Posy glowed.
She was not insensible to the homage of admiring
glances, and James, by the luck of things, happened
to be the first good-looking man with whom she was
thrown into intimate contact.  Propinquity!  What
follies are committed in thy company!

She wondered why James's handsome face and
manly figure had never impressed her before.  She
spoke to Susan about him with nonchalant vivacity:

"James is a power in this house."

"Yes, dear; your father thinks the world of him.
He is a very good young man."

"Good?  Now what do you mean by that?"

"Gracious!  I hope you haven't inherited father's
trick of asking questions."

"Is James pious?"

"Pious?  He goes to church; he does his duty;
he is to be trusted; he's a hard worker, and from
what your father tells me, a real artist."

"An artist?  Does he work for the love of his work?"

"I think he does."

Then and there Posy decided to cultivate James
Miggott.  He had excited the curiosity of an intelligent
maiden.  She found herself wondering what he
did with himself when his work was done.  Did he
read?  Had he any real friends?  Was Miss Dredge
a friend of his?  What were his ambitions?  The
more she thought of him, the sorrier she became for
him.  Possibly he perceived this.  Upon the rare
occasions when they met, he was careful to assume a
captivating air of melancholy, preserving
conscientiously the right distance between them,
scrupulously polite but somewhat indifferent to her
advances, thereby piquing her to bolder efforts to
bridge the distance.  A woman of experience might
have been justified in assuming that a man who
could play so careful a game was no tyro at it.

This preliminary sparring lasted nearly two
months.





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.. _`AT WEYMOUTH`:

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   CHAPTER XV


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   AT WEYMOUTH

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   \I

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Only lookers-on at the human comedy can be
consistently philosophical.  The drama is too exciting,
too distracting to the players.  When a man is
chasing his hat along a gusty thoroughfare, he takes
little heed of the headgear of others.  Till now Posy's
outlook had been girlishly critical.  Her ideas and
ideals were coloured or discoloured by the persons
with whom she came in contact, but she was modest
and sensible enough to realize that her experience of
the big things of life was negligible.  She had never
suffered sharp pain either of mind or body.  The
death of her grandmother affected her subjectively.
A familiar figure had been removed from her small
circle.  A landmark had vanished for ever.  It was
awful to reflect that her own mother might have been
taken.  She remembered an incident at school, the
summoning of a girl about her own age, a chum, to
the presence of the headmistress.  The girl, to the
wonder of all, had not returned to the class-room,
but Posy saw her an hour later putting her things
together for a long journey.  The girl's face had
changed terribly.  In answer to the first eager
question, she had said, drearily: "My mother is dead."

Posy burst into tears; the girl's eyes were dry.  Then
Posy stammered out: "Did you love her very much?"
and the other laughed, actually laughed, as she
replied: "Love her?  She was all I had in the
world!"  This glimpse of a grief beyond tears was a
unique experience, something which transcended
imagination, and something, therefore, not fully
absorbed.  For many nights Posy was haunted by the
vision of that white, drawn face, with its hungry,
despairing expression; then it slowly faded away.
By this time, also, she had almost forgotten the
Honeybun stories of the submerged tenth.  Bexhill
breezes had blown them out of her mind.  Somewhere
in festering slums and alleys, men and women
and children were fighting desperately against
disease, poverty, and vice.  Teachers had pointed out,
with kindly common sense, that it would be morbid
and futile to allow the mind to dwell upon conditions
which, for the moment, a schoolgirl was powerless to
ameliorate.  With relief, Posy had purged her
thoughts of such horrors.

And now her father raised the question—What
was to be done with this fancy piece?

Posy answered that question after her own
fashion.  The Chrysostom aforesaid—excellent,
practical parson!—had indicated a task.  Under his
teaching and preaching Posy had returned gladly
enough to the fold of the Church of England.  She
no longer thought of Omnipotence as a vague
essence permeating the universe.  The Deity had
become personal.  Chrysostom, however, was too
sensible a man to fill the minds of schoolgirls with
doctrinal problems.  He preached practical Christianity
with sincerity and eloquence.  The nail he
hammered home into youthful pates was this:
"Make the world a pleasanter place for others, and
you will find it more pleasant for yourselves."  The
girls at Posy's school indulged in mild chaff over this
dictum.  Sweet seventeen admonished blushing sixteen
to "Be a sunbeam!"  Another catchword in
frequent use was: "Save a smile for mother!"

Fired by the conviction that the sunbeam business
paid handsome dividends, Posy returned to Soho
Square.  She intended to brighten the lives of
everybody in the house, including the tweenie.  That, for
the moment, was to be her "job."  She described
the process as "binging 'em up."

And the member of her father's household who
seemed to be most in need of "binging" happened
to be James Miggott.



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In August—she had left school for good at the end
of the summer term—Posy and her mother went to
Weymouth.  Quinney did not accompany them.  He
said, jocularly, that he got all the change he needed
travelling about the kingdom in search of "stuff."  Business
being at a low ebb in August, he selected
that month for a general stocktaking, balancing of
accounts, and the planning of an active autumn
campaign.  Mabel Dredge remained with him, a
most capable assistant; James Miggott was told
that he might spend three weeks wherever he pleased.

It will never be known whether or not James knew
that Susan and Posy were going to Weymouth.  We
do know that Posy met James on the pier, and was
much struck by his gentlemanly appearance.  It is
possible that the young man planned this meeting;
it is quite impossible to infer as much from what
passed between them.  James raised a neat straw
hat, and was strolling on, when Posy waved her
parasol.

"Are you thinking of cutting me?" she asked,
holding out her hand.  "What an extraordinary
coincidence your being here?"

"Is it?" asked James quietly.  "I have been to
Weymouth before, have you?"

"No; this is our first visit.  Did father tell you
we were coming?"

"No."  He laughed derisively, as he continued,
"Mr. Quinney does not talk to me about you.  I can
imagine that he might—er—object——"

He paused significantly.

"Object to what?"

"To this.  I know my place, Miss Quinney."

He was as humble as Uriah Heep, but more
prepossessing in appearance.  The sun and wind had
tanned his cheeks, his brown hair curled crisply
beneath the brim of his smart hat.  He wore white
shoes and quiet grey "flannels.

"Now that you are here," said Posy, "let us sit
down and listen to the band.  Mother is writing to
father.  She writes every day, dear thing!  She will
turn up presently."

Once more James hesitated, but he obeyed.  The
band played a popular waltz; upon the beach below
people were bathing; the sea displayed the many
twinkling smile as the breeze kissed the lips of the
wavelets.

"Jolly, isn't it?" said Posy.

"Very."

"But you don't look jolly, Mr. Miggott.  You
never do look very jolly.  And I have wondered—why."

She looked straight into his eyes, smiling pleasantly,
anxious to put him at ease, anxious also to
peer beneath an impassive surface, to find out
"things" concerning a good young man, whose
goodness, apparently, had not brought with it a very
delirious happiness.

"Shall I tell you?" he asked, in a voice that
trembled oddly.  "Shall I let myself go for once?
Ought I?"

Posy glanced the length of the pier.  Her mother
was not in sight.  She might not appear for half an
hour.

"Yes; please tell me."

He told his tale so fluently that the uncharitable
might hazard the conjecture that he had told it before,
perhaps to Mabel Dredge.  By hinting at this we
have somewhat prejudiced the effect on the reader,
who must bear in mind that Posy was too innocent
and young to entertain such suspicions.

"I don't look jolly, Miss Quinney, because I don't
feel jolly.  Perhaps you think that a man ought to
disguise his feelings when he's with a charming young
lady.  Well, I can't.  I'm too honest.  It was a shock
just now meeting you, because you stand for everything
I want and can't get."

The inflections of his voice far more than the actual
words challenged her interest.  Obviously, he was
capable of feeling, and she had deemed him cold.  He
continued more calmly, subtly conveying to her the
impression that he was suppressing his emotions on
her account.

"I am your father's foreman, and I earn three
pounds a week.  Lark and Bundy, Tomlin, any of the
big dealers would pay me five pounds a week, but I
can't leave Soho Square."

Posy said hastily:

"I'm sure father couldn't spare you."

"I am useful to him.  I'm not such a fool as to
underrate my services.  He is generous.  He will
raise my salary, but I shall remain downstairs.  I
repeat, I know my place.  I am fully aware that I
ought not to be talking to you like this.  Mr. Quinney
would be angry."

"Really, that is absurd."

"Do you know your father as well as I know him?"

She evaded his eyes.

"Perhaps not, but there's nothing of the snob
about daddy; he never pretends to be better than
he is.  He rose from the ranks, and he's proud of it.
I'm proud of it.  I admire men who rise.  I have no
use for slackers who owe everything to others.  Why
shouldn't you rise higher than father?  You are
better educated and a greater artist."

"What!  You have thought of me as an artist?"

"I have been told that you are an artist.  Father
says so, and Mr. Tomlin.  It interested me enormously.
You love your work for your work's sake.  That is
fine.  And yet you tell me that you are unhappy,
that it gives you a shock to meet me, because I stand
for everything you want and can't get.  What do you
want?"

"Freedom for one thing."

"Mustn't freedom be earned?  I have been taught
so.  You are serving, I suppose, your apprenticeship.
The work you love may be a small part of that, and
the rest drudgery.  I used to loathe playing scales,
but I tried to be jolly."

"Your position is assured."

"If you're the right sort, yours will be."

"I shall be jolly when it is.  You ought to know
all the truth, Miss Quinney, if my stupid affairs don't
bore you too utterly?

"Can't you see how interested I am?"

"You are divinely kind.  I can't express what
your sympathy means to me.  Well, you spoke of my
rising.  That's just where the shoe pinches.  I have
not risen; I have fallen."

"Fallen from—what?"

"My people were gentlepeople."

"Oh!"

She drew in her breath sharply.  James could see
that his last shaft had transfixed her.  He was very
clever, and he guessed exactly how she felt about
gentlepeople, using the word in its widest sense.
Quinney's money had made her a gentlewoman.

"My father was an officer in the Army."  (It was
true that James's father had once held a second
lieutenant's commission in the Militia.)  "My
mother was the daughter of a West Country parson.
They died when I was a boy.  There was practically
nothing for me.  I was educated at a charitable
institution.  Charity apprenticed me to a cabinet-maker
at Exeter.  Charity nearly buried me—twice.
I have known what it is, Miss Quinney, to be without
food, and without money, and to wake morning
after morning wishing that I had died in the night!"



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   \III

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This was the part of the tale which James told so
fluently.  Admittedly, that last long sentence smacked
of rhetorical effect.  It could hardly have been
entirely impromptu.  Nevertheless, it rolled Posy in
the dust.  She became horribly conscious of rushing
in where angels might fear to tread.  Indeed, that
hackneyed quotation occurred to her.  She
ejaculated, "Oh!" for the second time, and blushed
piteously.  James rose to his feet.  He spoke
politely:

"I see that I have distressed you, and I am very
sorry; but you asked me."

"I, too, am sorry," said Posy earnestly.  "I am
most awfully sorry.  I wish I could say the right
thing, but I feel rather a fool."

"The right thing for me to say, Miss Quinney, is
good-bye.  I shall go to Lulworth this afternoon."

"But why should you go?  I don't understand.
Are you going on our account?"

"On my own."

Another transfixing shaft.  Posy was too honest to
misinterpret this calm statement.  Secretly she was
thrilled by it; delicious shivers crept up and down
her spine.  For the first time she became supremely
conscious of her power over a man.  At that moment
she turned from a jolly girl into a woman.  It
touched her to fine issues.  In a low, tremulous voice
she faltered:

"You know best."

James raised his hat and went.



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Half an hour later Susan had the story, with
reserves, from Posy's lips.  Are we to blame the girl
because she left out the climax?  At any rate, her
conscience remained clear.  She could not betray a
sacred confidence.

Susan was not vastly interested, as a wiser mother
might have been.  She accepted James's departure
with a certain smug satisfaction which exasperated
her daughter.  She was sure that father would
approve.  Posy said sharply:

"But, mummie, daddy couldn't object to our
being decently civil to Mr. Miggott?"

"He might."

"But why—why?"

"Father is so ambitious for you, child.  Any
gallivanting about with his foreman——"

"Gallivanting!  Who spoke of gallivanting?
Mr. Miggott is a gentleman.  You like him and respect
him.  So do I.  The word 'gallivanting' sounds so
housemaidy, so merry-go-roundy."

"Oh, well, my dear, I'm glad the young man has
gone, that's all."

The subject remained closed for the rest of the
Weymouth visit.  Mother and daughter returned to
London a month later.  James was at work downstairs.
When Posy and he met, she could hardly
believe that he was the same James who had sat
beside her on the pier.  His dignified salutation,
"Good-afternoon, Miss Quinney!" seemed ludicrously
inadequate, but what else could the poor
fellow have said?  Posy could find no answer to this
insistent question, and yet she had expected a
different greeting.  He had not offered to shake
hands, nor had she.  Ought she to have held out her
hand first?  Was he offended because she hadn't?
When she woke next morning she wondered whether
James was wishing that he had died in the night.
The determination to brighten his life, within
reasonable limits, imposed itself upon her while she was
dressing.  More, it inspired her to choose a clean,
lilac-coloured frock, which became her admirably.
Putting up her hair she was careful to arrange it
artistically, because an artist might look at it with
deep-set, melancholy eyes.  If you had told her that
she was romantic she would have been furious.

At breakfast Quinney said briskly:

"I've a job for you, my girl."

"Certainly, daddy."

"I'm going to turn over to you the dusting of my
china, and the cleaning of the Waterford glass.  You
used to do it nicely before you went to boarding-school."

"I shall just love it."

Quinney was much gratified.  Posy, he reflected,
was his own dear daughter; no nonsense about her,
no highfalutin airs and graces, first and last a perfect
lady.  He smacked his lips with satisfaction.

"You must teach me values, daddy."

"By Gum, I will.  You'll learn, too, mighty quick.
Did the girls at your school ever throw it up to you
that you was a tradesman's daughter?"

"No, I told them that you were the honestest
dealer in England."

"So I am, my pretty, the honestest in the world.
It pays to be honest."

"That's not why you're honest?"

"No, missie, it ain't.  I swore solemn never to
sell fakes except as such the night you was born."

"What a funny time to choose!"

Susan made a sign to him, but he went on:

"Funny?  Never could make out why people use
that word in such a silly way.  Funny?  Your dear
mother nearly died the night you came to us."

Susan interfered nervously.

"Now, Joe, you ain't going into that, are you?"

"Yes, I am.  Why not?  It's high time, speakin'
of values, that young Posy should know just what
she cost us.  I say it's part of her education, the part
she couldn't learn at school.  She's eighteen.  She
knows, I take it, that she didn't drop from heaven
into the middle of a gooseberry bush?"

At this Susan, not Posy, blushed.  It was the girl
who said, calmly:

"You are quite right, father.  I ought to know
what I've cost both of you."  She looked at her
mother tenderly, and spoke in a softer voice: "Is it
true that you nearly died?"

"Yes."

"And so did I," said Quinney.

Posy's eyes filled with tears.

"I shall always remember that," she murmured.





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.. _`A BUSINESS PROPOSITION`:

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   CHAPTER XVI


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"The covers are perfectly beautiful," said Quinney,
"the very finest needlework, all of 'em worked by
the same hand, and all of 'em different in pattern."

He was staring at a set of eight chairs which had
arrived that morning from a town in Essex.  James
had just unpacked them, and was regarding them
gloomily, for he cared nothing about needlework
covers, and the chairs themselves were of walnut,
very old, very worm-eaten, and carved by a prentice
hand.  He said so presently.  Quinney snorted.

"Do you think, my lad, I'd ask you to waste your
time and talents tinkering with those?  Rip off the
covers carefully, and put them aside.  Save the nails
and the backing.  Don't show 'em to anybody.  They
need cleaning, but I shan't send 'em to a reg'lar
cleaner's.  You can try your hand on 'em."

"Not much in my line," said James.

"Liver out o' whack this morning?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"Well, try to look more cheerful.  It pays."

He scuttled off, chuckling to himself, and thinking
what fools other dealers were, for these chairs had
been bought cheap from a dealer who, like James
Miggott, knew nothing of the value of
eighteenth-century needlework.

By the luck of things, that same morning Tom
Tomlin telephoned from Bond Street, asking him to
drop in at his earliest convenience.  Quinney went at
once, well aware that procrastination loses many a
bit of business.  He found his friend in much excitement.

"Got something to show you," said Tomlin.

"Got something to show *you*," retorted Quinney.

"What?"

"The finest set of old needlework chair-covers
I've seen for many a long day."

Tomlin exhibited enthusiasm.

"That beats the band!" he exclaimed.  "Looks
as if it was fairly meant."

"What d'ye mean, Tom?"

"You come along with me, and see."

Quinney followed him, conscious of a rising
excitement, for Tomlin reserved enthusiasm for
memorable occasions.  The pair walked together
down Bond Street and into Oxford Street.  In a
few minutes they were passing Lark and Bundy's
establishment.  Tomlin paused at the great
plate-glass window.

"Look at them chairs, Joe."

Quinney flattened his nose against the glass,
being slightly short-sighted.  The chairs were
magnificent.

"Nice lot—hey?"

"And a nice price Bundy paid for 'em.  You
wasn't at Christopher's the day before yesterday?"

"By Gum!  Tom, you don't mean to say that
those are the Pevensey chairs?"

"Yes, bang out of Pevensey Court, sold with
Chippendale's receipt for 'em.  Sixteen hundred
guineas, my tulip!"

They went on in silence.  Presently Quinney
growled out: "It's a cruel price."

"They're the goods, Joe.  Hall-marked!  Bundy
can place 'em at a big profit with Dupont Jordan.
Did you notice the carving?"

"Did I?  Never saw a finer set, never!"

They walked on towards the Circus, and presently
turned sharp to the right.  By this time they were
approaching Soho Square.

"Come out of our way a bit, haven't we?"

Tomlin replied solemnly.  "I wanted you to have
a squint at those chairs first.  Here we are."

They paused opposite a mean house, entered an
open door, and ascended a rickety, evil-smelling
staircase.  Tomlin pulled a key from his pocket,
unlocked a door upon the second floor, and ushered
Quinney into a biggish room filled with odds and
ends of furniture.  Quinney had been here before.
It was one of Tomlin's many small warehouses.  The
centre of the floor had been cleared, and in this
cleared space stood four chairs.

"Thunder and Mars!"

"Thought you'd be surprised," muttered Tomlin,
pulling up a dirty blind.

The four chairs were carved like the chairs from
Pevensey Court.  They had horsehair seats much
dilapidated, and the mahogany had been mercilessly
treated, but to a connoisseur such as Quinney there
was not a scintilla of doubt that they were carved by
the same master hand which had designed and
executed the set in Lark and Bundy's window.

"Where are the other four?" asked Quinney, on
his knees before the chairs, running his hands over
them, caressing them with tender touches.

"Where?  Oh, where?" said Tomlin.  Then he
spoke curtly and to the point:

"Them four came out of Ireland.  I paid fifty
pound for 'em."

"You do have the devil's own luck, Tom."

"Not so fast.  I can't find out anything about
them.  If I tried to sell 'em, as they are, Lark would
see to it that fellows like Pressland crabbed 'em, as
he did that commode o' yours."

Quinney gnashed his teeth.  The history of that
unhappy transaction was now known to him.  He
knew where the commode was, and what price had
been paid for it.

"With luck," continued Tomlin thoughtfully,
"I might sell these chairs for fifty apiece.  One
is an armchair.  Your covers would go nicely on 'em, eh?"

"By Gum, the very thing."

"And you've eight covers?"

"Eight of the best."

Tomlin stared hard at the little man.

"Let's have a look at the covers," he said slowly.

They returned to Soho Square.  Somewhat to
Quinney's astonishment he found Posy in James's
room.  Her presence, however, was easily and glibly
explained.  James, obeying orders, had asked his
employer's daughter for some cleaning fluid.  She
had just brought him some.  That was all.  Quinney
frowned, and signified with a gesture that Posy
could "scoot."  She did so, after exchanging
greetings with Tomlin.

"Dev'lish fine gal!" said Tomlin.  "Glad to see
she's not above helpin' in the business."

"Don't want her help!" growled Quinney.  He
turned savagely to James:

"Didn't I tell you not to show them covers to
nobody?"

"Sorry," replied James carelessly.  "I supposed
Miss Quinney would be considered an exception."  He
added, with mild derision, "She took no interest
in the covers at all."

"She saw them?" snapped Quinney.

"Possibly," said James.

Tomlin examined them carefully, nodding his big
head, getting redder than usual as he bent down.
James had removed one cover.

"They're a bit of all right," pronounced Tomlin.

Quinney led the way upstairs into the sanctuary.
Posy was there, cleaning some beautiful glass lustres.
Her father addressed her snappishly:

"Look ye here, young woman, I don't want you
nosin' about downstairs.  See?"

Posy tossed her head, furious with her father
because he rebuked her before Tomlin.  She replied
coldly:

"I thought I could go where I liked in our own
house."

"It's my house.  See?  You run along to mother
like a good girl."

With immense dignity Posy moved to the door.
If she wanted to impress upon her father that
she was now a woman grown, she succeeded
admirably.  As the door closed behind her, Tomlin
said:

"Bit short with her, wasn't you?"

"Do her good.  I won't have no *tête-à-têtin'*
between her and James Miggott."



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They sat down.  Quinney pushed a box of cigars
across his desk.  It annoyed him slightly that Tomlin
selected one with unflattering suspicion, smelling
it, and putting it to his ear.

"It's all right, Tom: I only smoke the best in this
room."

Tomlin lit the cigar, inhaled the smoke, and
nodded approvingly:

"Must admit, Joe, that you know a bit about
most things.  Come on surprisingly, you have."

At this Quinney smiled complacently.  Tomlin
continued, eyeing his companion shrewdly and
genially:

"I've a proposition to lay before you, Joe."

"Go ahead."

Tomlin rose, walked to the door, and opened it.
He closed it softly and came back.

"Whatever are you up to, old man?"

Tomlin grinned.

"My women," he remarked pensively, "listen at doors."

Quinney exploded.

"And you dare to think that——?"

"Tch!  Tch!  Nothing like making cocksure.
What I have to say is not for other ears.  Now,
ain't it a pity that we haven't eight o' them Chippendale
chairs on which we could fit them eight fine
covers?"

"Pity?  It's a sinful shame."

"Almost a dooty we owe to society to turn them
four into eight?"

"Hey?"

"James could do it."

"Are you mad, Tom?  We know what James
can do.  I ain't denyin' that he's a wonder, but he
can't copy them chairs so that you and I, not to
mention the rest of 'em, wouldn't know the difference
if the new four was shoved alongside o' the old
four."

"Right!"

"Then what the 'ell are you at?"

Sinking his voice to a hoarse whisper, and leaning
forward across the desk, the great Tomlin unfolded
his scheme.

"I propose this," he said deliberately.  "James
can make eight chairs out of them four by breaking
up the four, half and half, half of the old in
each."

"Um!" said Quinney.

"If the worst came to the worst," continued
Tomlin, "if any of 'em did drop on to the fact that
the set of eight had been very considerably restored,
what of it?"

"Um!" repeated Quinney.

"A set of eight chairs, slightly restored, with
your covers on 'em, the dead spit of the Pevensey
chairs, would excite attention?"

"More than we might want.  I don't see Bundy
a biddin' for our set without askin' a lot of questions.
He'd spot the repairs."

"Right again.  I put these questions, Joe, to
have the pleasure of hearin' you answer them as I
would myself.  In a sort o' friendly fashion I look
upon you, my boy, as my pupil."

"Go on!"

Tomlin's large face brightened till it shone like a
harvest moon.  He had feared that his pupil would
withhold those cheering progressive words.

"Do you want to get back some o' your hard-earned
savings which you lost over that commode?"

"Yes, I do."

"Follow me close.  James goes to work on the
quiet with my chairs; he works alone in my room
back o' Wardour Street; he puts your covers on;
and then we pass judgment on the completed set.
If we're satisfied, really satisfied, I don't think we
need to worry much about Bundy and Pressland.
Lark—thank the Lord!—is losin' his eyesight.
When the chairs have passed our examination,
they'll go to Christopher's.  You can leave all that
to me.  Nobody will know that you and I have ever
seen the chairs."

"Nobody?  How about James?"

"Exactly.  James must be squared.  It's time
you raised his salary.  I shall make him a handsome
present.  Remember, you'll lend James to me for
this little job.  It don't concern you."

"You take James for a fool?"

"Not me.  James is a bit of a knave, but he
knows which side his bread is buttered.  If he was a
fool I wouldn't touch him with a bargepole.  I'm
afraid o' fools.  Now, we've got the chairs to
Christopher's, and we'll choose a small day for the
sale, some day when the big men are elsewhere."

"Then who'll bid for 'em?"

"Me and you, my lad."

He lay back in his chair, winked triumphantly,
and laughed.  Quinney was still puzzled.

"Bid for our own chairs?  Pay a thumpin'
commission to find 'em on our hands?  Funny
business!"

"Joe, you ain't quite as sharp as I thought you
was.  We two, and anybody else as likes, bid for the
chairs.  We bid up to nine hundred pounds.  Christopher's
commission would be ninety o' that.  The
chairs cost me fifty.  What do you value them covers
at?"

"Five-and-twenty—thirty."

"Call it thirty.  Put James's work at another
thirty.  That makes a round two hundred quid.
What have we got to show for that?  A set of eight
chairs which have fetched nine hundred pounds at
Christopher's, with Christopher's receipt to prove
that the money was paid down for 'em.  Christopher
returns that nine hundred, less their com., to my
agent, that is to us.  You see to it that the buyin' of
the chairs by you is properly paragraphed.  You
have them on exhibition in this very room, and I
bring a customer to whom you show Christopher's
receipt.  Everything square and simple.  My
customer offers you eleven hundred.  We share and
share alike just nine hundred pounds.  Four hundred
and fifty each.  No risks!"

"Um!" said Quinney, for the third time.  Tomlin
rose with alacrity considering his weight.

"You think it over.  Take your time."

"Don't like it!" growled the little man.

"I call it a perfectly legitimate transaction."

"Come off it, Tom!"

"Are you thinkin' o' your inside or your outside?
Yer skin or yer conscience?  If it's conscience——"

"Well——?"

"I'll make this remark.  One way and t'other I've
paid you more than a thousand pounds for 'restoration'
work done by James Miggott during the past
four years or more.  Don't forget that!  So long!"

Quinney heard him chuckling as he made his way
downstairs.



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   \III

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He became a party to the projected fraud, but not
without perturbations of spirit and rumblings of
conscience.  Ultimately he salved the latter with the
soothing reflection that he was much more honest
than Tomlin or Lark or Bundy.  It is affirmed, with
what truth I know not, that gluttons who happen to
be total abstainers are peculiarly virulent against
drunkards.  Quinney, poor fellow, son of a dishonest
father, dishonest himself during his earlier manhood,
reflected joyously that he was an admirable husband
and father.  He said to Susan, who was in blissful
ignorance of his dealings with Tom Tomlin:

"Old Tomlin, hoary-headed sinner, went to Blackpool
for the last week-end, and he didn't go alone,
nor with Mrs. T., neither.  He's a moral idiot is Tom.
What would you say, Susie, if I went larkin' off to
Brighton with Mabel Dredge—hey?"

He pinched her still blooming cheek, staring into
her faithful eyes.

Susan replied artlessly:

"Joe, dear, it would break my heart."

"Gosh, I believe it would.  Well, mother, your
loving heart won't be broken that way."

Susan knew that this was true, and smiled
delightfully.

"I'm a good hubby," said Quinney complacently,
"and the very best of fathers, by Gum!"

Whenever he "swanked" (we quote Posy) like
this, Susan regarded him anxiously.

James Miggott undertook his new job without
protest, but there was an expression upon his
handsome face which puzzled his employer.  He summed
up James as "downy."  When he raised the young
man's salary to four pounds a week, that derisive
smile of which mention has been made, played about
James's too thin lips.  Quinney said sharply:

"You don't seem bustin' with joy and gladness.
Four quid a week ain't to be sneezed at."

"Don't I earn it, sir?"

His tone was perfectly respectful, with a faint
sub-acid inflection.

When the four chairs were turned into eight, and
duly covered with the precious needlework, Tomlin
and Quinney inspected them with huge satisfaction.
Certainly James had done himself justice.  The
restorations were subjected to microscopic scrutiny.
Tomlin smacked his gross lips.

"You leave the rest to me," he said.



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   \IV

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The time has come to explain James's smile.  We
must attempt what French dramatic critics term the
"*scène obligatoire*."

He had captured Posy.

He achieved this easily, because he happened to be
the first good-looking man to make love to a healthy
young woman of lively sensibilities and affections.
Here again the uncharitable may be justified in
hinting at that practice which makes the game of love
perfect.  If Youth but knew!  This youth did know
many things which he kept to himself discreetly;
saliently amongst them may be reckoned the art of
striking hard when the iron is hot.  Posy grew very
hot, when her sire rebuked her for wandering downstairs
into James's room.  James perceived this.  Let
us say this for him in partial excuse of what follows.
He had fallen in love with a blooming girl, whose
bloom contrasted so agreeably with the too-white
cheeks of Miss Mabel Dredge, whose high spirits
were strong enough to raise to their level his
somewhat gloomy thoughts.  Truth being the essence of
this chronicle, we are constrained to add that the
hope of being admitted to partnership with a
prospective father-in-law had been another lever towards
this mental exaltation.  Nor did James forget that
Posy was possessed, under Mrs. Biddlecombe's will,
of some three thousand pounds which became hers
absolutely when she attained her majority.

The pair talked together very seldom after Quinney's
injunction, but they passed each other half a
dozen times a day, preserving a silence which is
perhaps the most barbed dart in Dan Cupid's quiver!
Each began to study facial expression, and the finer
shades of common salutation.  The mere words,
"Good-morning," admit infinite variety of inflection.  The
pronouncing of a name, even such a name as Quinney,
may be made lyrical, almost hymeneal.  James
showed himself to be a master of these simple arts.
His appearance at such moments indicated suffering
nobly controlled.  Posy began to lie awake at night
wondering if James also was a martyr to insomnia.
You may be sure that she encountered James in
those pleasant suburbs of slumber frequented by
lovers, the *vias tenebrosas* where Dante and Beatrice,
Petrarch and Laura, Francesca and Paolo, must have
wandered hand in hand.  Here, in sequestered peace
Posy talked to James without any exasperating
restrictions save those which maidenly modesty
imposed.  Imaginary conversations have won many
hearts.

And then one day occurred the *coup de foudre*.

Quinney and Susan happened to be out.  Posy, as
usual, was dusting the china in the sanctuary.  James
entered the room.

"Good-morning, Mr. Miggott!"

"Good-morning, Miss—Posy!"

He had never called her Posy before.  But she
divined from the tenderness of his tone that her name
must have passed his lips a thousand times.

They looked at each other diffidently.  Posy
stretched out her hand.  She felt that this was due to
an artist who might reasonably infer that he was not
held in the highest esteem by his master's daughter.
James hesitated for one moment only.  Then he
kissed her hand.  She quivered.  He ran his hungry
lips along her slender wrist.  She thrilled and sighed.
He took her into his arms and kissed her masterfully,
feeling her heart throbbing beneath his own.

Presently they discussed the future, although loath
indeed to leave the present.

"What will father say?"

"Darling, you must let me deal with your father."

"Can you?"

"I think so.  I am sure of it.  We must be patient
and very, very careful."

"I should like to tell mother."

"No, no!  Believe me that would be a blunder.
She would tell him.  For the moment we must love
secretly."

She sighed deliciously.

"It does sound exciting and romantic.  Of course
you know best."

"I do!" he replied grimly.  "I know that I shall
have to fight for you.  I mean to fight.  You'll see.
But we must be extra careful.  A look——!  We can
write to each other."

Her smooth forehead puckered.

"Can we?  Father always deals out the letters.
He would think nothing of opening mine if he
suspected."

"I have a plan."

"What!  You have made plans?  You were sure
of me?"

"No, no!  Never sure.  Torn in two, I was, between
hope and fear, but I made plans all the same.
Look here, we can use that lac cabinet as a pillar-box."

"Father's precious cabinet?"

"He never opens it; the drawers are empty; the
key is in the lock."

Together they approached the cabinet, one of the
"gems."  Upon the top of it stood the K'ang He
mirror-black jar much beloved by Quinney.  James
opened the cabinet, almost more beautiful within
than without.  He indicated a drawer.

"Pop your letters into that.  Then lock the cabinet
and hide the key in the mirror-black bottle."

"What a splendid idea!"

"Isn't it?  If he misses the key, you will be asked
to find it, and you will find it.  Then we can choose
another pillar-box.  You will post your letters,
dearest, in the morning, when you are dusting here.
In the middle of the day, while you are lunching, I
shall get your letter and post one of my own.  That
way we run no risks at all."

"You are quite wonderful!"

Susan had used the same words to her Joe twenty
years before.





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   CHAPTER XVII


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   INTRODUCES CYRUS P. HUNSAKER

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Some three weeks later the "restored" Chippendale
chairs were sold on a by-day at Christopher's famous
auction rooms, and, as the public prints set forth,
were secured after spirited competition for nine
hundred pounds by Mr. Joseph Quinney, of Soho
Square.  There had been, according to the reporters,
a duel *à outrance* between Quinney and Tomlin for
the possession of these magnificent chairs.

Upon the following morning Posy was alone in the
sanctuary.  Her father had installed recently a
speaking-tube, communicating with James Miggott's
room, which was just behind the shop.  Posy used
this whenever the chance presented itself to exchange
a few whispered words with her lover.  She had just
informed him that a billet had been popped into the
lac cabinet.  Also she had exchanged kisses through
the tube, and perhaps on that account her eyes were
sparkling more brightly than usual.  She was hanging
up the tube when Susan entered.

"Thought I heard you talking just before I came
in," said Susan.

Posy, the hardened young sinner, never blushed
as she answered lightly:

"I was asking Jim through the tube where father was."

Susan stared at her pensively.

"Your dear father would be very much displeased
if he heard you speaking of James Miggott as Jim.
It's too familiar."

"Why?"

"I'm not going to bandy words with you, Posy,
because you do get the best of me, thanks to your
fine schooling."

Posy frowned.  She was hearing too often of her
"advantages."  She said protestingly:

"Mumsie, dear, don't rub that in.  I'm fed up with
such vain repetitions from father.  I didn't ask him
to send me to an expensive boarding-school.  I
believe he did it to annoy the Tomlins."

This, we know, was not the reason, but there was
some truth in it.  Tom Tomlin had considered a
governess at forty-five pounds per annum quite good
enough to educate his three daughters.  Susan
laughed.  Posy amused her when she talked with
entire frankness.

"Dear heart, what things you do say, to be sure!
You were sent to Bexhill because there was too much
Honeybunning.  But it did annoy the Tomlins.  I
remember when your grandmother bought a small
piano for me.  We lived in a semi-detached.  How
the neighbours did tear their hair with envy and
jealousy."

Posy, clad in a neat pinafore, was rubbing the
lacquer cabinet.  Mrs. Quinney watched her fondly,
thinking how young and vigorous the girl was.

"Rub the lacquer gently, child.  Coax the polish
back."

"Right O," said Posy.

"Your poor father thinks the world of that cabinet."

"So do I," said Posy demurely.

Susan opened her eyes wider than usual, detecting
real warmth in her daughter's voice.

"Do you?  That's your father cropping out in
you.  I'm beginning to believe that he prefers things
to persons; so you'd better be warned in time.  The
beauty of this world ain't to be found in sticks or
stones."

"Cheer up, mumsie!  I shan't devote my young
life to either a stick or a stone."

She laughed softly as Mabel Dredge came quietly
in.  Susan looked at her husband's typist not too
pleasantly.  She was not jealous of the young woman,
but it exasperated her to reflect that Mabel spent two
hours at least every day with Quinney.  She said
crisply:

"Mr. Quinney is out, Miss Dredge."

"I know.  The chairs from Christopher's have just
come."

Posy exclaimed excitedly: "I'm dying to see
them."  Susan sighed.  Nine hundred pounds would
have bought another Dream Cottage, with a small
garden.  Miss Dredge continued in her monotonous
voice:

"Mr. Quinney left orders that they were to be
brought up here."

"Very good," said Susan.  "Tell Mr. Miggott to
bring them up."

"Yes, madam."

The typist moved slowly towards the door.  Susan
glanced at her keenly, contrasting her with Posy.  In
her usual kind voice she murmured:

"You don't look very well, Miss Dredge."

"I am perfectly well, thank you, madam."

She went out, closing the door.  Susan said
reflectively:

"Crossed in love, I dare say."

"Poor dear, I hope not."

"Six months ago I did think that she and James
Miggott might make a match of it."

"What?"

"Why shouldn't they?  Very suitable, I'm sure."

"Oh yes," Posy murmured hastily.  Changing the
subject briskly, she went on: "If the Christopher
chairs are to be placed in this room, I suppose that
father means to keep them."

"Till he gets a big price."

Presently James appeared, followed by two men
carrying the chairs.  They were arranged side by side
in a double row.  Posy examined them with the
keenest interest.  Susan glanced at them and sniffed:

"Fancy paying nine hundred pounds for those!"

"They're simply lovely,"'said Posy.  She stroked
the needlework and glanced at James's impassive
face.  "It's funny, but there's something familiar
about them to me.  I must have seen them before."

"Quite impossible," said James.  "They came out
of an old house in Ireland.  They're almost replicas
of the famous Pevensey set, which Lark and Bundy
bought."

Susan had moved to one of the windows overlooking
the dingy square.  She never beheld the trees
and grass without thinking of her beloved
flower-garden in Melchester.  The sight of the chairs
annoyed her tremendously.  More false gods!
Would the day ever conic when her Joe, with his keen
love of beauty, would turn his eyes and heart to what
grew, to what was alive?  She heard Posy saying:

"It's the needlework I seem to recognize."

"Bother the needlework!" exclaimed Susan.

"Why, mumsie, what is it?"

"It worries me to see you kneeling and gloating
over stupid old furniture, that's all.  Here's your
father coming.  Good-looking young fellow with him,
too.  Much better worth looking at than them chairs."

James retired.  Posy joined her mother at the
window.  Just below stood her father and a tall
stranger.  Quinney was pointing out the pediment,
and expatiating volubly upon the solid qualities of
Georgian houses.

"Father is swanking," said Posy.

The two men entered the shop below.



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Presently, Quinney came upstairs, betraying some
excitement, easily accounted for by Susan.  A big
buyer was below, the sort of customer who might
spend hundreds without turning a hair.  Quinney
was rubbing his hands together and chuckling.  He
informed the ladies that a rich American was in the
shop, and wanted to see the chairs.

"They're here," said Susan.

Quinney frowned very slightly.  It annoyed him
when his wife made futile remarks, a habit which she
seemed to have acquired recently, or was he
becoming more critical?

"Where did you think I thought they was?" he
inquired, hovering about them, but not gloating over
them, somewhat to Susan's surprise.

"Want us out of the way?" asked Susan.

"Certainly not.  Isn't this your drawing-room,
old dear?"

"Fiddle!" said Susan tartly.

She could not have explained why she was feeling
irritable, but of late, since Posy's return from school,
she had lost something of her normal serenity.
Possibly she resented being made a fool of before her
daughter.  The sanctuary was not her room, and
never had been or could be anything but Quinney's
room, filled to overflowing with his things.  Also, she
was aware that her husband used her as a stalking
horse.  No doubt he had just said to this young
American: "I'll ask my wife if I can show you her
room."  What nonsense!

Quinney, however, was not disturbed by her
exclamation.  He glanced at Posy, and told her to
take off a brown holland pinafore.  Then he scuttled
off, still chuckling.  He reappeared, ushering in the
stranger, presenting him as Mr. Cyrus P. Hunsaker,
of Hunsaker.

Mr. Hunsaker bowed politely.  Posy perceived
that he was very nice-looking, an out-of-doors man,
bronzed by wind and sun, a typical Westerner,
probably a rider of bucking bronchos, a man of
flocks and herds.  He was quite at his ease with the
two women, and—unlike young Englishmen of his
age (he looked about thirty)—able to appreciate what
he saw in words culled from a copious vocabulary.
Quinney was delighted with him.  He liked most
Americans because they were strivers and pushers,
and free with their dollars.  He saw, too, that Posy
had made an immense impression.  Hunsaker stared
at her with flattering intensity.  Posy, equally at
ease, asked him if the town of Hunsaker was called
after him.  This mightily pleased her father, because
it established the right atmosphere at once.  The
"shop" was downstairs.  From beginning to end
the little comedy about to be played had been
rehearsed between Tomlin and Quinney.  Tomlin had
found Hunsaker and introduced Quinney to him, as
the proud owner of the chairs which he, Tomlin, had
wanted to secure.  Tomlin had said sorrowfully:
"They're just what you're after, Mr. Hunsaker, but
this Quinney, queer little cuss!—bought 'em, I do
believe, for himself.  He won't part with his very
best things.  He's quite potty about it!"  This had
challenged Hunsaker's interest.  Quinney, seemingly,
was a man after his own heart.  He, too, hated to
part with certain possessions.  He did not as yet know
much about articles of *vertu*, but he wanted to know.
An unslakable thirst for such knowledge consumed
many dollars.  He answered Posy breezily—one had
a whiff of the prairie, of the Wild West.

"Shall I tell you, Miss Quinney, how that great and
growing town came to be called by my name?"

"Please."

"Well, most of the towns and villages in New
Mexico used to be called after the names of saints and
saintesses.  When it came to christening this
particular village the boys wanted to name it San Clement,
but my father was of opinion that we were fed up
with saints, so he said: 'Hold hard, why not call
this little burg by the name of a sinner!'  And, the
drinks were on the old man, for then and there they
called it Hunsaker."

"Was your father a sinner?" asked Posy demurely.

Hunsaker laughed.

"He was a tough old nut when up against the
wrong crowd.  Ah! the chairs!"

"Yes," said Quinney carelessly.

"Elegant!"  He glanced at the beautiful room
with enthusiasm.  It made inordinate demands
upon his vocabulary.  He racked his brains for
the right words which came.  Very solemnly, he
observed:

"You have here, Mr. Quinney, an incomparable
reservation."

"Yes," Quinney replied, with equal gravity,
"this is my private collection, Mr. Hunsaker;
everything I value most in the world, including my
wife and daughter.  Lordy!  How I hate rubbish!
Rubbish is beastly!"  He pointed to the lacquer
cabinet, purposely distracting the young man's
attention from the chairs.  "Now a cabinet like that
makes me think of heaven.  I can say my prayers to it!"

Susan said, with a touch of her mother's majesty:

"Joe, how you do go on!"

"Yes, my dear, I go on and *up*!  We'd be stewin'
in our own juice in a silly old sleepy town if it hadn't
been for me.  On and—up!  What a motter for a
Christmas cracker!  Married the right woman, too,
a perfect lady!"

"Joe—please!"

Hunsaker was much amused.  He had liked the
little man at first sight; he was quite as delighted
with his family.  Quinney continued in high good
humour:

"I chose her"—he pointed at Susan, who blushed.
"And the result," he pointed at Posy, who did not
blush, "justifies my choice—hey?"

"You bet it does," said Hunsaker.  "Miss Quinney
is by all odds the most precious object in this
wonderful room—the gem, if I may say so, of your
remarkable collection."

Quinney gazed fondly at his daughter.  He had
almost forgotten the chairs.

"Just like a bit of Chelsea, Mr. Hunsaker.  The
real soft paste, and as good as she's pretty; the
apple of her father's eye.  Plays the pianner and the
mandoline!  Sings like a canary!"

Posy expostulated.

"Father!  Please!"  She put her finger to her
pretty lips.

Hunsaker, feeling that he had known these
pleasant people all his life, said significantly:

"You won't keep her long, sir."

"What?"

"Not if there are any spry young men about."

Quinney betrayed real uneasiness.  It flashed upon
him suddenly that this abominable loss was inevitable.
He consoled himself with the reflection that
no spry young men had been about.  Then he said
with unction:

"I'm going to hang on tight to my little girl.  She
is the gem of my collection.  Cost me more than
money, too."  He sank his voice confidentially.
"Nearly cost me her pore dear mother.  By Gum!
I remember swearing that I'd give up selling imitation
oak as the real stuff, if my old Dutch pulled
through."

"And did you?" Hunsaker asked.

"I did.  More, I tore up a big card that used to
live in our front window—'*Genuine Antiques!*'  Yes;
never sold faked stuff after that, unless labelled
as such.  Lordy!  I'm wastin' your valuable time."

"Not at all."

"Posy, show Mr. Hunsaker that case o' miniatures.
I've a Samuel Cooper, two Englehearts, a Plimer, and
half a dozen Cosways."

Hunsaker shook his head.

"I know nothing about miniatures.  There's a
daisy of a china cabinet!"

"It is.  Delighted to show you stuff, Mr. Hunsaker.
You've the collector's eye.  Take a squint at
those blue and white jars on the mantelpiece."

"I'd sooner look at your chairs."

Quinney said lightly:

"You can look, at anything you like, Mr. Hunsaker,
but I understood from Mr. Tomlin that you had all
the mahogany you wanted."

"More than I want," replied Hunsaker grimly.
"I've been much imposed upon, Mr. Quinney, with
mahogany."

Susan flitted quietly from the room.  Posy began
to rub the lacquer of the Chinese cabinet.  She heard
her father saying:

"Dear, dear!  I've been done, too—crisp as a
biscuit!  Everybody's done, hey?"

"I'm never done twice by the same man."  He
bent down to examine the carving of the
chairs.  "These are immense—the finest I've ever
seen."

"By Gum!  I wish you could have seen the settee
which I sold to the Grand Duke of Roosia."

Hunsaker hardly heard him.  He was becoming
absorbed in the chairs.

"The papers report you as having paid nine
hundred pounds for the set."

Quinney chuckled, nodding his head.

"That's right!  I'd had two glasses of old brown
sherry after lunch.  My tip to all and sundry is:
Buy before lunch, unless you're a blooming
vegetarian and teetotaler."

Hunsaker prided himself upon the directness of his
business methods.  He said tentatively:

"Would you take a handsome profit on these chairs?"

"You look at that lac cabinet, and you won't want
to buy chairs."

Hunsaker did look at the lac cabinet, and the girl
beside it, softly rubbing its polished surface.  He
crossed to her, smiling.

"On a Charles the Second stand," added Quinney.
"The inside is as beautiful as the outside—more so.
I'll show it to you.  Where's the key?"

He addressed Posy, but she pretended not to hear
him.

"Where's the key?" he repeated.

"I saw it yesterday," said Posy quietly.  Her
heart began to beat uncomfortably, as she thought
of her letter in the middle drawer.

"Can you see it now, missie?  Is it on the floor?"

Hunsaker interrupted:

"Please don't trouble.  Is that screen Chinese?"

"Yes; incised lacquer.  They wanted that for
the South Kensington Museum.  Hits you bang in
the eye, don't it?"

Hunsaker examined it as Quinney expatiated
upon the enamelling and colour.  His enthusiasm,
his accurate knowledge, his love of precious
objects for their beauty of design and craftsmanship,
impressed the young man tremendously.  He
remembered what Tomlin had said: "You'll find
Quinney a character.  What he tells you is right is
right!  That's how he's built up a thumping big
business."  Hunsaker had not been vastly impressed
by Tomlin, but he was quite certain that he had
spoken the truth about Quinney.  His heart warmed
to the little man.  When Quinney paused he said
gratefully:

"I'm much obliged; it's an education to see such
treasures."

"The only education I've had, Mr. Hunsaker."

"I only wish that I could tempt you to part with
one of them—this cabinet, for instance."

"It's not for sale.  I'd like to oblige you.  Is
there anything else you particularly fancy?"

Hunsaker's roving eye was captivated by the
K'ang He mirror-black bottle, standing alone in its
glory upon the top of the cabinet.

"I like that black and gold jar."

"Um!  It's not bad, but there ought to be two
of 'em."

Posy wiped her pretty forehead.  At the mention
of the K'ang He jar, in which lay snug the key of
the cabinet, she had trembled with apprehension.
Hunsaker said quickly:

"I'd like the chairs best of all.  You bought
them yesterday for nine hundred.  Will you take
eleven hundred?"

"Yes," said Quinney, "I will."

He pulled out a pocket-book and extracted a slip
of paper from it.

"You can have this, Mr. Hunsaker.  Don't
destroy it!  Keep it in your safe."

Hunsaker took it.

"Christopher's receipt for my cheque.  It proves
that the chairs fetched the price named at public
auction."

"Thank you."

"And now, to sweeten our first deal, I'll make
you a little present.  You fancied that K'ang He
bottle.  It's yours."

He advanced towards the bottle.  Posy said
hurriedly:

"Shall I go and clean it, father?"

"Clean it?  It's as clean as you are, my pretty."

"You are very generous," said Hunsaker.

Quinney winked and chuckled joyously.

"Biz!  There are other things downstairs, Mr. Hunsaker.
Are you buying these chairs for yourself?"

As he spoke he held the bottle in both his hands,
caressing it softly.

"Why, certainly.  Have them cased, please, and
consigned to my agents in New York, who will see
them through the Custom House.  Any marks on
that jar, Mr. Quinney?"

Quinney handed to him the bottle.

"I don't think so; they never marked them
bottles.  It's marked all over."

Hunsaker turned it upside down, and the key of
the cabinet fell out.

"The missing key," said Quinney.  "Now what
fool stuffed it in there?"

He replaced it in the lock of the cabinet.

"Like to see the inside?" he asked.

Posy was in torment.  In desperation she blurted out:

"Father, dear, Mr. Hunsaker may have other
engagements."

"I have," said Hunsaker.  "Important ones, too.
Thank you, Miss Quinney."  He turned to her
father.  "May I call to-morrow at eleven, and have
another look round?"

"Glad to see you any time."

As he was speaking, Susan drifted back.  Hunsaker
went up to her, speaking cordially:

"This has been a very pleasant and informal visit,
Mrs. Quinney.  Do you ever go to the play?"

"Sometimes," said Susan.

"Often," added Posy.  Her face was sparkling
with smiles.  Her cheeks were delicately flushed.
Hunsaker said gaily:

"Will you three nice people dine and do a play
with me?"

"You must leave me out," said Quinney.

Posy answered for her mother and herself:

"We shall be delighted, Mr. Hunsaker."

The young man shook hands.  He seemed to hold
Posy's hand a thought longer than was necessary.
Quinney chuckled, because he was thinking that if
his Posy were to be taken away by some enterprising
young man she might well be captured by Cyrus
P. Hunsaker, of Hunsaker.  Inspired by this thought
he enjoined his daughter to accompany the visitor
as far as the shop.  Characteristically, he blurted
out what was in his mind, as soon as he found himself
alone with Susan.

"He's taken a shine to our girl, Susie."

"Fiddle!" said Susan, for the second time.

"Stoopid expression!  You must break yourself
of that.  I tell you it's true.  Couldn't ask for
nothing better.  Fine upstanding young chap."

"A foreigner!"

"Nonsense.  They could spend half their time
over here.  You might give the child a hint.  Tell
her to play up."

"What an idea!"

"I have ideas, Susie.  We can't expect to keep
her; and the best in this country won't marry a
tradesman's daughter.  He's as good as any in his
country.  See?"

"I see a large mare's nest," replied Susan.

Posy returned, brimming with the determination
to retrieve her letter.  Quinney beckoned to her.

"Come you here, my girl."  He took her head
between his hands, and gazed at her proudly.  "Did
that young fellow squeeze your hand just now?"

"Father!"

"None o' your sauce!  Did he?"

"Well, yes, he did."

Quinney winked triumphantly at Susan.  He
kissed Posy, and said superbly:

"You've got a daddy with ambitions, a kind,
loving, clever old daddy!  Lordy!  Sometimes I
fair wonder at myself, I do.  Because I've climbed
so high.  But you're a-going higher—bang up!
Good looks, I'll admit you got them from mother,
and good brains, same as mine.  Quick wits, God
bless you!  You made a hit with young Hunsaker!
A bull's-eye!  Now scoot, both of you!  I've a lot
of business."

"I haven't finished dusting, daddy."

"Yes, you have, when I say so.  Scoot!"

Unhappily, there was nothing else to do.





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   CHAPTER XVIII


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"I've sold the chairs, James.  Take 'em away.
Pack 'em up at once!  Nail down the cases.  See?"

"Yes, sir.  I congratulate you, sir."

"Pack up extra carefully that K'ang He bottle."

"The K'ang He bottle?"

Something in his tone arrested Quinney's attention.
It brought to mind what, for the moment, he
had forgotten—the loss of the key and its tumbling
out of the bottle.  James, perhaps unconsciously,
had glanced at the cabinet, and Quinney's alert eyes
had intercepted the somewhat furtive, shifting
glance.  He said sharply:

"The key of the cabinet was in that bottle.  Did
you put it there?"

James hesitated and was lost.  Had he replied
promptly, either in the affirmative or negative, his
employer doubtless would have dismissed the
incident from his mind.  James, unhappily, was
constrained to determine swiftly the expediency of
saying "Yes."

"I may have done so," he replied.  He went on
fluently: "The key fits badly, tumbles out of the
lock sometimes.  I meant to tell you."

Quinney blinked at him, wondering why he
answered evasively.  How did he know that the key
fitted loosely?  It was not his business to touch the
cabinet.  At the same time he was conscious that
James, as the restorer of the chairs, had been very
prompt with his congratulations.  Of course he
knew everything; he had to know; and equally of
course the secret of the fake bidding was perfectly
safe with him, inasmuch as he had received a share
of the plunder.  Quinney had raised his salary;
Tomlin had tipped him handsomely.

"Nice profit for you, sir," continued James
blandly.

"Not bad," Quinney admitted.

"Splendid idea, sir, buying in your own stuff."

Quinney rather winced at this, but he covered a
slight confusion by his bluff manner and candid
speech.  He could not flimflam James.  It would be
fatuous to play the hypocrite with an accomplice.
He said confidentially:

"Christopher's receipt just clinched matters.  You
ought to have been here, my lad.  An object lesson
for you, by Gum!"

James's voice was very silky as he murmured:

"Nobody like you, sir, to sell stuff."

"Right you are, James, even if I do say it.  There
ain't my superior in London—that means the
world."

It was then that James led trumps for the first
time.  He continued in the same ingratiating tone:

"Oh yes, sir.  And such a father, too."

Quinney swallowed this easily, smacked his lips
over it, much to James's satisfaction.

"Always done my duty, my lad.  That's a
thought to stick to one's ribs—hey?  Never can
remember the day when I couldn't say that.  And
the fam'ly, as I read only t'other day, is the
unit o' national life.  Square, too, I've been,
within reasonable limits, although I do make
ignorance pay a profit to knowledge.  I know a
lot, more'n you think for.  And you owe a lot
to me, James."

"Yes, sir."

"You're very useful to me, my lad, and your
future will be my special care."

James smiled.

"Thank you, sir."

Afterwards, Quinney admitted to Susan that at
this particular moment James's good looks had hit
him, so to speak, in the eye.  But he did not
consider them in relation to Posy.  We know that the
little man was amazingly shrewd whenever his own
interests were imperilled.  And it had occurred to
him, not for the first time, that there might be
"something" between his handsome foreman and
his quite attractive typist.  He could trust James.
Could he trust Mabel Dredge?  Some men babbled
indiscreetly to the girls.

"You'll be thinking of gettin' married one of
these fine days?"

"I have thought of it, sir."

The young man spoke so pleasantly that Quinney's
heart warmed to him.  Moreover, he liked and
respected Mabel.

"Good!  What you want is a helpmate, a worker
like yourself, strong, healthy, and comely."

"Strong, healthy, and comely," repeated James.

"One who'll work hard in your house, while you're
working hard in mine.  There are young fellows in
your position, my lad, who make fools o' theirselves
by falling in love with young ladies.  Useless
creatures!  It would hurt me to see you doin' that,
James."

"I'm sure it would.  Much obliged, sir."

"Not at all.  Never so happy as when I'm thinking
for others."

James removed the chairs.



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Once more alone, Quinney thought of sending for
Mabel Dredge, but he lit a cigar instead, and took
stock of his treasures, wondering whether he could
screw himself up to part with the lacquer cabinet.
Hunsaker would buy it.  He would pay gladly a
thumping price.  Quinney approached it, puffing
leisurely at his excellent cigar.  As he did so the
mysterious hiding of the key recurred to him.  He
stared at the cabinet, frowning.

Then he opened it.

Always, on such occasions, the hidden beauties of
this miracle of craftsmanship appealed to him with
ever-increasing strength.  The lacquer inside was as
softly fresh as upon the day when the last coat was
lovingly applied.  So soft, and yet so hard, that it
could not be scratched with the nail.

He gloated over it.

At this moment he was absolutely at peace with
himself and the world.  He would not willingly have
changed places with the mighty Marquess of Mel.
If there was a fly in his precious ointment, it might
be considered so tiny as to be negligible.  The most
illustrious of the Chinese craftsmen, artists to their
finger tips, lacked one small knack common to the
English artisan.  The drawers in these seventeenth-century
cabinets did not, alas, slide in and out with
the beautiful smoothness characteristic of the best
English specimens.  Quinney pulled out two or three
of them.

In one he perceived a letter.  He examined it.  It
was addressed:

"To my own Blue Bird."



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The writing was Posy's.

Quinney stared at it, palsied with amazement.
Then he read it, and re-read it, till the full meaning
of what it meant had percolated through and through
his mind.  His cigar went out.  He sat at his desk
with the letter in his hand, dazed for the moment,
breathing hard, very red in the face.  The fingers
which held the sheet of notepaper twitched.  He
noticed a faint fragrance of lavender, a perfume much
affected by Posy, and he remembered vividly a
certain afternoon, long ago, when Susan had sat in
the garden of the Dream Cottage filling small muslin
bags with lavender to place between the baby linen
of their tiny daughter.

Slowly, a dull anger and rancour grew in him.
What did this shameless baggage mean by deceiving
him and Susan?  He included Susan.  Physically he
was overwhelmed, eviscerated, almost faint with
impotent rage, but he found himself wondering
what Susan would say.  Suppose—his heart grew
cold—suppose she knew!  What!  His faithful
wife a party to this abominable fraud on him?
Impossible!

He rose up wearily, and walked with unsteady
steps to the door.

"Susan!" he cried querulously.

Posy appeared, wreathed in smiles.  With a terrific
effort her father smiled frozenly at her.

"Send your mother to me!" he said stiffly.
"I want to see her at once on a small matter of
business."

"Right O!" replied Posy.

He returned to his desk.  When Susan, came in she
perceived at once the change in him.

"Gracious, Joe, is this house afire?"

"No.  I am.  Shut the door."

She did so, and then approached him.

"Whatever is the matter?"

He held up the billet and said hoarsely, "Listen.
I found this in the lacquer cabinet five minutes ago.
It's in Posy's writin'.  And it's addressed 'To my
own Blue Bird.'"

"Oh, dear!  Oh, dear!"

The sight of her weakness strengthened him,
but he exclaimed testily: "Don't make them
stoopid noises.  They sound like a mind out of
whack.  Sit tight!  I'm a-going to read this
precious letter bang through, a letter written by
your daughter."

Susan, wriggling on the edge of a chair, protested
feebly:

"My daughter?  Ain't she yours, too?"

"I'm beginning to doubt it."  He read aloud,
"'My own Blue Bird——'"

"Who is her Blue Bird, Joe?"

"We'll come to that soon enough.  I may mention
that there was a play called 'The Blue Bird'! to
which you took Posy twice, and you jawed for three
days of nothing else.  A damn blue bird, accordin' to
you, stands for happiness—hey?"

"Yes."

He went on reading, "'It was splendidly clever of
you to think of using that silly old cabinet——'  Silly
old cabinet!  Hear that?  And I've refused a
thousand guineas for it!"

"Go on, dear!"

"I'm going on if you'll kindly stop wigglin' your
leg.  I'm going bang to the outside edge of this.
Pay partic'lar attention.  'It was splendidly clever
of you to think of using that silly old cabinet
as a pillar box, and the fact that we are
corresponding under the nose of father makes the
whole affair deliriously exciting and romantic.  I
should like to see his funny face——'  Is my face
funny?  Is it?"

"Not now, Joe.  Is there any more?"

"Is there any more, Mrs. Ask-Another?  D'ye
think a girl educated at no expense spared ends a
sentence in the middle of it?  Keep that leg still,
and I'll finish.  'I should like to see his funny face
if he could read this.'"

"My!"

"She shall see it, by Gum!  'We've got to be
most awfully careful, because if he caught me talking
to you except about his dull old business he would
simply chatter with rage.  But we must have a long
talk together, and as soon as possible.  Why not
to-night?  Father and mother are always fast asleep
by eleven.  At half-past eleven to the minute I shall
slip down to the sanctuary.  You be ready
downstairs.  I'll whistle softly through the tube; then
you nip up, and we'll have a perfectly lovely talk.
Your own POSY.'"

"But, Joe, who is her Blue Bird?"

"He'll be black and blue when I've man-handled
him.  It's that dog, James Miggott."

Susan grew pale and trembled.  She had never
seen her Joe so moved to fury, not even when he had
been "downed" by the pseudo Major Archibald
Fraser.  She faltered out:

"Joe, dear, James is much bigger than you."

To this Quinney replied ironically:

"After all these years o' church goin' I
thought you believed that Right was stronger
than Might.  Has it all soaked in?  Did you
mark that word 'dull' applied to my business?
Do you know what the contents o' this room
would fetch at Christopher's, if the right men were
biddin'?"

"Indeed, indeed, I don't."

"Nobody knows what my collection would fetch.
The Quinney Collection!  S'pose I leave everything
to the nation—hey?"

Susan sat bowed and silent before the storm.



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Quinney did not look at her.  Her attitude, her
troubled face were sufficient alone to acquit her of any
possible complicity in this abominable affair.  The
more he considered it as a tremendous fact in their
lives, the more incredible, the more irrational it
became to him.  His Posy, the Wonder Child, the
gem of the Quinney Collection, writing love-letters
to an obscure faker of furniture, a "downy" cove, a
rather sullen hireling, who earned four quid a week!
Had his child been born and educated "regardless"
for—this?  Had Susan and he suffered pangs
unforgettable in order that their child should forsake
them for this maggot of a Miggott?

Never!

Slowly, his fighting instinct asserted itself.
Catastrophe of any kind overwhelmed him at first, and
then his vitality, his recuperative qualities, would
come to the rescue.  He must fight this issue to the
end.  His dull anger and rancour passed.  His active
wits began to work.  He felt oddly sensible of a
certain exhilaration, the conviction that he would
soar, like the Melchester spire, above these
ignominies and disasters.

He stood up, inhaling deep breaths, smiling grimly.

"What are you going to do, Joe?"

"Watch on, and see."

He replaced the billet in its envelope, which had
been left open.  Then he crossed to the cabinet, and
put the letter into the drawer where he had found it.
He closed the doors of the cabinet, and came back to
his desk.  About all these actions there was an
automatic precision, as if the man had been transformed
into a machine.

Susan murmured:

"Joe, you frighten me."

"Wouldn't do that for the world, Susie."  His
voice was slightly less hard.  "I'm going to frighten
them.  See?"

"How?"

"I'm going to catch 'em together in this room
to-night."

"Gracious!"

"And you've got to stand shoulder to shoulder with
me, behind that screen.  At the right moment, when
least expected, we'll pop out."

"And what will you say?"

"Ho!  What will I say?  Between now and then,
my dear, I shall think over what I'm going to say.
Words won't fail me.  I shall down the pair of them,
rub their noses in their insolence and folly."

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Susan.





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   CHAPTER XIX


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   THINGS AND PERSONS

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That night, as usual, the Quinneys retired to bed at
half-past ten.  At eleven, the door of Joe's bedroom
opened noiselessly, and the little man's head,
crowned with a ridiculous smoking-cap appeared.
His body followed arrayed in a flowered silk
dressing-gown.  Posy's room was upstairs.

Susan joined her husband.  She was wearing what
may be described as a compromise kit.  Her pretty
hair, still long and abundant, hung down her back in
two braids.  She had put on a peignoir of wadded
silk, a garment not likely to rustle as she walked.
Upon her small feet were thick felt slippers.  In this
costume she looked ten years younger, and she was
pleasurably aware of this for reasons that will
appear presently.

Quinney closed his bedroom door.  They listened
for a moment, but no sound came from above.
Probably Posy was in bed, counting the minutes till
the big clock on the stairs summoned her to meet her
lover.

Quinney and Susan tip-toed down to the first floor.
In the sanctuary a fire was burning in the dog-grate.
Quinney smiled grimly, as he realized that Posy had
replenished it with logs which burned brightly enough
to illuminate the room with a soft amber glow.

"Sit down, mother."

Susan sat down in an armchair just opposite the
fire.  As a rule, this chair occupied its own particular
corner.  Posy, therefore, must have placed it in front
of the hearth.  Evidently Posy considered that one
chair would suffice for two persons.

Meanwhile, Quinney made his dispositions behind
the screen.  Presently he appeared, rubbing his
hands and chuckling quietly.  The walls in these
fine old houses were so comfortably sound-proof,
that he had no hesitation in speaking in his usual
voice.

"There!  Couched in the ambush, as Shakespeare
says.  Do you remember, old dear, when me and you
took a course o' the Bard to improve our powers o'
speech?"

Susan sighed.  In the tender light she looked
almost the Susan whom he had courted long ago.

"Yes; we were young then, Joe."

"We're young still, dearie.  Young and spry!
Full o' beans."

He stood on the hearth, facing her, with his back
to the glowing logs, looking down upon her delicate
features.  She raised her eyes to his, speaking in a
soft voice, with a faint smile flickering about her
mouth.  Quinney had fallen in love with her dimples.
He thought he could see the ghost of one in the cheek
slightly turned from the fire.  His attitude, erect and
sturdy, her attitude, the firelight, the lateness of the
hour—these recalled insistently the sweet past, when
Mrs. Biddlecombe used to leave the lovers to talk over
the present and the future.  Susan remembered, with
an odd little pang at her heart, how satisfied she had
been with that present, although Joe insisted upon
forecasting their future.  And his predictions, those
ambitions which she had regarded as vaulting high
above human probability, had come to pass.  He was
famous and rich!

"Joe dear!"

"What is it?"

"You became engaged to me, didn't you, against
your father's wish, and unbeknown to mother?
Yes, you did."

"And what of it?"

"I never told mother that day you kissed me for
the first time behind our parlour door."

"Now, Susie, what are you gettin' at?  Circumstances
alter cases.  My father made a white nigger
o' me.  But, by Gum!  I wasn't disobedient."

"You were, and you know it."

"What do you mean?"

"You took up with me against his wish."

"Ho!  I honoured him by marrying the best girl
in Melchester."

Susan said solemnly:

"You did deceive him, Joe."

"Serve him right, too."

"I say you deceived him."

"Well, for the Lord's sake, don't go on sayin' it,
repeatin' yourself like an old poll parrot.  Father
never did do you justice.  He never did know quality.
Quantity was what he'd go for.  Lordy! how he used
to waller in cheap job lots!"

Susan ignored this.  With slow pertinacity,
working steadily to her point, she continued:

"And I deceived my pore mother.  Used to wear
my engagement ring at night."

She lifted her hand and looked at it.  What a
wonderful present it had been reckoned.  Three
turquoises with small brilliants, paid for out of the
savings of a "white nigger"!

Joe stared at the ring.  It seemed to shine out of
the past.  He remembered everything.  For instance,
he had not haggled about the price demanded—six
pounds!  He had felt that haggling would be
indecent.  He said pensively:

"I used to envy that ring, Susie.  I used to think
of you asleep, and wonder what you looked like."
He sighed.  "Great times them was, to be sure!"

Susan met his glance.

"Because of those times," she whispered, "go a
bit easy, Joe, with these young people."

But his face hardened immediately.

"You leave that to me, my dear.  I'll fix 'em to
rights.  I'll sweep the cobwebs out o' their silly
noddles."

"If you'll try not to forget that we was just as
silly once."

"Silly?  Us?  That won't wash, Susie.  Like
mated like."

Susan remained silent.



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   \II

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When Posy entered the room, her parents were
sitting snug behind the incised lacquer screen.  The
girl added a fresh log to the fire, and smiled as she
looked at the big empty chair.  She was wearing a
very becoming pale blue dressing-gown.  Her hair,
like Susan's, hung down her back in two thick
pigtails tied with pale blue ribbon.  Her bare feet were
thrust into pale blue slippers.  She might have been
sixteen instead of eighteen, and about her there
breathed a virginal air, deliriously fresh and fragrant.
She smelled of lavender.

She went to the speaking-tube, and whistled
down it.  When her signal was answered, she said
joyously:

"It's all right, Jim.  Father fast asleep and snoring!
Come up!  Take your shoes off!  The fourth stair
from the top creaks horribly.  Skip that!"

She hung up the tube, and spread her hands before
the fire, warming them.  Upon the third finger of her
right hand sparkled a ring.  Upon her charming face
a smile sparkled also, as she listened for the step of
her lover.

James came in, carrying his slippers in his hand.
He was dressed as usual in a well-cut blue serge suit.
He closed the door noiselessly, and held out his arms.
Posy flew into them, with a sigh of satisfaction, but
when he hugged her too masterfully, she protested,
blushing, slipping from his embrace with a low
laugh.

"You must promise to behave reasonably."

"Reasonably?  Don't you like being kissed by me?"

"Of course I—er—like it."

"Awfully?"

"If you sit in that chair, I'll sit on the arm of it.
Please!  Be good!"

He obeyed.  She fussed over him, arranging the
cushion behind his back, touching him almost
furtively, but laughingly, evading his touches, obviously
the elusive nymph, captivated but not yet captured.
James turned to look at her, slipping his arm round
her waist.

"You are a sweet!" he said fervently.

"Am I much prettier than Mabel Dredge?"

"Rather!  What made you mention her?"

"Oh, nothing.  But mother was saying only this
morning that six months ago, when I was at school,
she thought that Mabel Dredge and you might make
a match of it."

"What rubbish!"

He spoke irritably, too irritably a finer ear might
have decided.

"I expect you flirted with her a teeny-weeny bit?"

"As if any man with eyes in his head would look
at Miss Dredge when you were about."

"But I wasn't about then."

It was so evident that she was merely teasing him
in the most innocent, girlish way, that he smiled and
pressed her closer to him, whispering:

"Don't let's jaw about Miss Dredge.  I say, isn't
this cosy?"

"Isn't it?  Fancy if father could see us now.
Jim, dear, I simply adore the excitement of this—our
meeting here in the sanctuary.  By the way, are
you as mad as daddy about things?"

"Things?"

"Things as opposed to persons.  Could you fall
down and worship figures?"

"I could worship your figure."

"You know what I mean, I'm simply wondering
what effect this particular business has had upon
your character.  Don't frown!  We must admit that
his business hasn't improved poor father.  And as
for Mr. Tomlin——"

Jim said slowly:

"What do you mean exactly by business affecting
character?"

She paused to consider.  Jim kissed her.  Perhaps
it was significant that she did not return his kiss,
being absorbed in her quest for the right word.  She
continued slowly:

"I hoped you would guess what I meant.  Of
course, poor father is honest.  I have always been so
proud of that.  It would break my heart if he were
like that horrid Mr. Tomlin, but he does care too
much for what mother calls sticks and stones.  They
have come between him and her; and they have come
between him and me.  I have never really known
how much he loved me.  And now this is going to be
a test, because if he does love me really and truly he
will put my happiness before his ambition, won't he?"

He kissed her again, and once more she let him do
it, passively, gazing, so to speak, into his mind rather
than his heart.

Jim spoke curtly.

"Make up your mind to this, Posy.  There will be
a big row.  It's inevitable."

Posy laughed.

"How like a man!  Big rows are never inevitable.
And daddy is an awful old fuss-pot, but his bark is
much worse than his bite.  When he barks at me I
laugh inside.  Now, Jim, are you necessary to
father?"

"Necessary?  Perhaps I am more necessary than
he thinks, because I know too much to be treated
badly.  He would hardly dare to sack me."

"Not dare!"

"I mean that I have a sort of 'pull' with him.
And I'm a hard worker, and a first-class
cabinet-maker.  When the time comes for him to take a
partner he couldn't find a better man than I am."

Posy laughed.

"Jim, I declare you have caught father's habit of
swanking."

"Swank, or no swank, I think I can make terms
with your father, and the time has come to do it."

"I'd sooner things went on as they are for the
present."

"Why?"

"Well, we haven't seen very much of each other
as yet.  Why, we hardly know each other."

"I have reasons, dearest, for wishing to tackle
your father as soon as possible."

"What reasons?"

She spoke coaxingly, laying her cheek close to his.

"I must keep them to myself for the present.
You trust me?"

"Oh, yes, but I'm horribly curious!  Are you cross?"

"No, darling, I'm impatient.  I want you to be
wholly mine."

He laid his lips upon hers, and felt a slight pressure
in return.  When he pressed her to him, she thrilled.
He kissed her ear, as he whispered:

"Do you ever think of what it will be like when
you are mine?"

"Ye-es."

"Sit on my lap, you darling!"

He half-pushed her off the arm of the chair.  She
stood up, hesitating, the colour ebbing and flowing
in her cheeks.

"I have never done that."

He held out both hands.

"Isn't it time to begin?  Is your dear little heart
beating?"

"Yes, it is.  Almost loud enough for father to
hear.  But I feel—I feel——"  Her voice died away
in an attenuated whisper.

"What do you feel?"

"As if—as if we were playing hide-and-seek in the
dark.  I'm rather frightened.  I suppose it's stupid.
I——"

James stood up, facing her.  Passion quivered in
his voice as he exclaimed:

"I'm going to kiss the fear of me out of you—now!"

"No, you ain't!" said Quinney.



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   \III

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The lovers sprang apart as Quinney emerged from
behind the screen.  He addressed the trembling Posy
first.

"Thought it likely you might make a fool of
yourself, and I've not been disappointed.  Come on,
mother!"

Susan appeared, looking very confused and miserable.

"Look at her," continued Quinney.  "She's
blushin' to the roots of her hair for you."

At this Posy pulled herself together, and remarked
defiantly:

"I'm not the least little bit ashamed of myself!"

"Sorry to hear that, my girl; it fair furs my
tongue to find you here.  Now then, like to take it
sittin' or standin'?"

"Take what?"

"The dose I'm goin' to deal out to a deceitful,
disobedient, ungrateful daughter.  Sharper than a
serpent's tooth, you are!"

So far, he had ignored James, who was standing
back, not far from the door.

"I'll take it standing," replied Posy, "beside Jim."

Then, to Quinney's rage, she tripped across the
room, and flung her arms round the young man's
neck.  Susan, ever mindful, like a true Biddlecombe,
of the proprieties, murmured gaspingly:

"Posy!  Please remember what you've not got on!"

"This beats the band," said Quinney.  "I call
this rank mutiny."

"It's—it's Nature," faltered Susan.

"You hold your tongue, mother!  A nice couple,
I do declare!  Can you cook, Miss Independence?"

Posy removed her arms from James's neck, but
she remained standing beside him.

"Cook?  Not me.  You know I can't cook.  Why?"

"Thought not.  Anything of a hand with your
needle?

"No."

Quinney turned to Susan, who had sunk into a
chair.  The youth had faded out of her comely face.
Every time that Quinney spoke she winced.  A
couple of tears were trickling down her cheeks.

"Why didn't you teach this young lady to use a
broom, mother?  Can she wash anything more
useful than her own hands?"

Susan shook her head helplessly.  The situation
was far beyond her.  She faltered out:

"Your orders, Joe.  The child, you said, was to be
brought up like a little princess."

He stared at her, dimly perceiving that his Susan
could not be described truthfully as standing shoulder
to shoulder with him.

"They tell me," he observed derisively, "that our
royal Princesses have to learn such things as cookin'
and washin', because revolutions do happen sometimes."

Susan shrugged her shoulders.

For the first time Quinney turned directly to
James.  The young man confronted his employer
with a certain dignity not wasted upon Posy.  He
seemed to be quite ready to vindicate himself, when
the opportunity came.

"Intentions honourable?" demanded the infuriated
father.

"They are, sir."

"Arranged the weddin'-day yet?"

"Not yet."

"Waitin', maybe, for father's blessing and a snug
settlement?"

James only smiled deprecatingly, but Posy
exclaimed:

"And why not?  Isn't it your duty to provide for
me?  It's your fault, not mine, that I can't cook, or
wash, or sew."

"What a sauce!" said Quinney, lifting his congested
eyes to heaven.  "Mother, you go and stand
between 'em."

Susan obeyed, muttering to herself and shaking
her head.  She placed a trembling hand upon Posy's
sleeve.  Posy saw the tears and kissed her.  Quinney
continued more fluently, speaking with deliberation,
for he had rehearsed carefully this part of the
scene.

"Now, Miss Impudence, ain't I been a good father
to you?  No quibblin'!  Ain't I been a tip-top
parent to you?"

"I don't quite know."

"What you say?"

"I said I didn't quite know."

"Well, I'm fairly jiggered!  Ain't I given' you
everything a girl wants?"

Posy remained silent.  Can we describe Quinney's
astonishment and dismay, when Susan said curtly
and clearly:

"Indeed you haven't."

Posy added, hesitatingly:

"I have wanted things you didn't give me."

"Of all the shameless hussies!  Now, you answer
straight.  It'd take a month o' Sundays to tell you
what I have given you, but you tell me what I've
not given."

Susan answered with a promptitude indicating
previous consideration of the question.

"Be fair, Joe!  You've not given the child your
confidence or your sympathy.  You don't know what
books she reads; you don't know anything about
her except what's on the surface."

"Hark to this!"

"You heard her say just now, when we was
behind the screen, that she didn't know whether you
loved her.  That's something a girl ought to know,
isn't it?"

"Go it!  Love her?  Love my daughter?  You
know that I love her."

"As she said, this is going to be a test of that."

"See here, Susan!  Are you on my side or on hers?"

"I'm trying to stand between you, Joe—trying
hard to keep the peace, and—and to be just."

"Just?  You dare to hint that I don't love my child?"

Very slowly, Susan answered him.  What it cost
the faithful soul to speak the truth, as she conceived
it to be, no male scribe can set forth.  To her his
question embodied the hopes and fears of all her
married life, what she had suppressed so valiantly,
so successfully, that he had never been vouchsafed
a glimpse of her tormented sensibilities.  To her this
was the supreme moment when she must speak
plainly, or for ever hold her peace.

"You love old furniture, Joe, old china, tapestries,
and lacquer cabinets.  You love them too well, dear.
They have crept between you and Posy, between
you—and me."

The dreariness of her voice smote her husband.
Had they been alone, he would have melted; but
James was present—James, whom he despised,
James, whom he knew to be unworthy.  Unable to
deal adequately with Susan's pathetic indictment, he
turned savagely on the young man.

"And you—don't you love old furniture, old
china?"  He made a passionate gesture, including
within a sweep of his arm all the treasures about him.
He continued: "Answer me!  Don't you love things
worth their weight in gold?"

"They interest me, of course.  I don't love them."

"Never entered your overcrowded mind, did it,
that when closing-time came for me these things
would belong to my only child—hey?"

"It may have entered my mind, sir, but I didn't
fall in love with Posy because she was your daughter."

"Ho!  Tell me, how do you propose to support
this young lady after I've given you the sack?"

"For that matter, Mr. Tomlin wants me.  You
pay me four pounds a week.  I'm worth ten to any
big dealer."

"'Ark to Mister Pride-before-the-Fall!"

Rage now possessed him.  He had promised himself
that he would keep his temper, and deal drastically
but calmly with a clever knave and a pretty
noodle.  But Susan's attitude had blown to the wind
such excellent resolutions.  Perhaps the dominant
idea in his mind was to get Susan alone, to vindicate
himself in her eyes.  He believed honestly that this
abominable affair had distracted her poor wits.
Obviously, the first step towards an understanding
with Susan was the settlement of this preposterous
James Miggott.  He nerved himself for a knock-out
blow.  In James's eyes, set a thought too close
together, he fancied that he read derision and
defiance.  He heard James's quiet voice:

"I am quite able to support a wife."

"Are you?  Does that mean, my lad, that you're
ready to marry her against my wish, without my
consent?"

"I counted on your consent, sir."

"You answer my question.  You're in love with
Posy for herself—hey?  You'd take her as she
stands?"

James answered firmly but respectfully:

"Yes."

Poor Quinney!  He had expected hesitation, a
craven retreat from a false position, glib
expostulation—any reply except this stark "Yes."  The blow
stunned him.  He heard Posy's joyful voice:

"Oh, Jim, you are a darling!  I was never
quite—quite sure till this blessed minute!"

The little man boiled over.  He was almost ripe
for personal violence.  Fortunately, the sense that a
man must not fight with his fists in the presence of
ladies made him thrust his hands into his pockets.
The other convention concerning the use of strong
language was honoured in the breach!

"Damn you!" he spluttered.  "If you want her,
take her—now."





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   CHAPTER XX


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   BLACKMAIL

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   \I

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The bolt fell from the blue with shattering effect
upon Posy and James.  Susan, however, with that
instinct which makes a woman grab at her petticoats
when she is tumbling over a precipice, exclaimed
shrilly:

"Joe!  He can't take her without her stockings!"

"That's his affair," said Quinney.

His shrewd eye had marked a collapse on the part
of James.  He felt reasonably assured that the young
man was bluffing; he knew that this "downy cove"
wanted a wife with more than stockings, no matter
how pretty her bare feet might be.  Fortified by this
conclusion, he, so to speak, fixed bayonets and
charged.  Unfortunately, he did not take Susan's
character into account, which a husband so acute
should have done.  He was well aware that his wife,
with all her shining qualities, was obstinate and
emotional.  More, he had never regarded her as a
mother, although that significant name crossed his
lips a hundred times each day.  Susan was his wife.

When he charged, head down, seeing "red,"
intent only upon "downing" the clever knave and
the foolish virgin, Susan interposed, metaphorically,
her soft body.

"Joe, you ain't serious?  You ain't turning our
child out of our house at midnight?"

We must admit that Quinney was not serious, but
for the moment he was in no condition to think
soberly.  He replied fiercely:

"I'm turning out a—adder!"

Susan faced him.  He had lost his head; she lost
hers.

"If you do this——" she gasped.

"Go on!"

"If you do this unnatural, cruel, wicked——"

"That's right.  Hit a man when he's down!"

"Down!" she retorted, as fiercely as he; "it's
up you are, Joe Quinney, tens o' thousands o' feet
above all common sense and common decency.  It is
things you care for—things—things—things!  And
our Posy—my Posy, bless her!—is right to prefer
persons to the graven images, the false gods, which
you've set up and worshipped—yes, worshipped!
There's only one person in all the world you care for,
and that's yourself—yourself!"

She flung herself into a chair in a paroxysm of
grief and distress, covering her face with the hands
which had worked so faithfully for a husband
changed beyond recognition.  Posy flew to her.

"Darling mother!"

Quinney pushed the girl aside.

"All your fault, you baggage!  Susan!  Susan!"

Susan sobbed inarticulately.  Quinney shook
her, speaking loudly, but not unkindly, confounded
in his turn by an indictment which he hardly
understood.

"Stop it, old dear, stop it!  I care about you.
Susie—I do, indeed!  Worked for you, I have, made
a perfect lady of yer!  Couldn't get along without
you, no how!  And you know it!  Darby and Joan—what?
Oh, bung it!  Gawd bless me soul! you'll
melt away like, if you ain't careful.  Sue, s'elp me,
you come first."

She lifted her head with disconcerting suddenness.

"Do I?  Sure?"

He seized her hand, and pressed it.

"Why, of course.  Nice old cup of tea, you are, to
doubt that!"

"You'd miss me if I went?"

The sharp interrogation ought to have given him
pause.

Perhaps he had always underrated Susan's
subtlety.  The most foolish mothers can be subtle as
the serpent when the happiness of their children is
at stake.

"Miss you?  Haven't I said time and again that
I hoped as I'd be taken first?"

She sat up alert, strangely composed after this
tempest of emotion.

"Oh yes, you've said so——"

He was far too excited to perceive that she was
leading him into a trap cunningly contrived.

"Meant it, too!  Man o' my word, I am!"

Susan stood up.

"Man of your word," she repeated ironically.
"Tell me you was joking when you threatened to
turn young Posy into the street?"

His mouth opened, his eyes protruded, as if he
were a victim of that rare malady known as Graves's
disease.  Had his Susan plotted and planned to trip
him up?  Was she a superlative actress?  He
moistened his parched lips with his tongue, measuring
his will against hers, sorry for her, but sorrier still
for himself.  Then he said more calmly:

"Young Posy needn't leave us unless she wants
to.  I'll keep on James.  I'll sweeten his salary again
to please you, but our child ain't for the likes of him.
He's no class."

Posy interrupted, with a toss of her head.

"James is good enough class for a child of yours."

Quinney curbed an angry retort.  His temper was
at last under control.  He said quietly:

"It comes to this, Posy.  You've got to choose
between James Miggott and us.  Now, not another
word.  You scoot off to bed.  We'll talk of this again
to-morrow."

"I shall choose Jim to-morrow."

Then Susan fired the decisive shot.  Nobody will
ever know whether she meant it.  She had been tried
too high.  Doubtless the spirit of bluff was hovering
in the sanctuary, playing pranks now with this
victim, and now with that.

"If you drive Posy out of this house, Joe, I shall
go with her.  If she never returns to it, I shall never
return to it."

Quinney wiped his forehead, as he ejaculated:

"The pore soul's gone potty!"

Susan continued:

"I was ever so happy when we went to live in the
Dream Cottage; I have been very unhappy in this
big house filled with things which you love more than
me."

"Unhappy—here?  Lordy!  You'll complain of
the Better Land when you get there!"

James spoke.  So far he had kept his powder dry
and his head cool.

"May I suggest——"

"What?"

"A compromise, sir.  You have always impressed
me with the wisdom of doing nothing rashly."

"Pity you couldn't profit by such advice,
Mr. Marry-in-Haste."

"I've been courting Posy for more than three
months."

"You've the rest of your life to regret it."

James hesitated, trying to determine the right
policy to pursue.  Then he said firmly:

"There are one or two matters to talk over, sir,
before we part company."

"Meaning, my lad?"

"Matters we had better discuss quietly, and—alone."

"Ho!  Hear that, Susan?  He's not quite in such
a hurry to take the young lady without her stockin's.
Very good!  You pop off to bed, my girl.  Susan,
you go with her.  I'll see you later."

Posy glanced at James, who nodded.

"Good-night, Jim!"

"Good-night, my darling!"

"Tchah!" muttered Quinney.  For the third time
in his life the remembrance of the Channel crossing
vividly presented itself.  He felt deadly sick!



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As mother and daughter retired, Quinney
exclaimed, more to himself than to James:

"When I think of what I've done for them two
thankless females!"

"What have you done?" asked James.

"Slaved for 'em for twenty years!  Sweated blood,
I have!  Thanks to me, they've lived in cotton-wool,
able to take it easy all the time.  Enough o' that!
What you got to say to me—alone?  Hey?"

"Can't you guess?  Didn't you overhear just now
what I said to Posy?  I told her that I thought I
could deal with you, and that the time had come to
do it."

"Deal away, my lad.  Pull the cards out o' yer
sleeve.  Lay 'em on the table."

"My cards, sir, are chairs."

"Chairs?  You gone potty, too?"

"Chairs.  The chairs which Mr. Tomlin bought for
fifty pounds; the chairs which I 'restored'; the
chairs which were done up with old needlework covers
taken from other chairs; the chairs which you put
up at Christopher's and bought in after spirited
bidding—faked bidding—for nine hundred pounds;
the chairs which you sold to Mr. Hunsaker this
morning for eleven hundred; the chairs which you
ordered me to pack at once.  Nice little tale to tell
Mr. Hunsaker, when he calls to-morrow!  Nice little
bit of 'copy' for the newspapers."

We know that this young fellow rehearsed his
speeches.  He had rehearsed this.  It flowed smoothly
from his lips.

"Blackmail!" gasped Quinney.

"I prefer to call it a weapon, sir, which you are
forcing me, sorely against my will, to use."

"This puts the lid on."

"Yes, it does."

"I understand.  It's my daughter against your
silence, hey?  Hold hard!  Does she know of this?"

"No.  Don't you remember?  She asked for
information, which I withheld out of respect for you
and her.  Posy believes you to be scrupulously
honest."

"I'm damned!"

"I fear that you will be, if this story becomes
public."

"My Posy against your silence.  My Posy against
my reputation.  My Posy against my wife!"

He was profoundly moved.  James perceived this,
and proceeded to follow up his advantage.  His
tactics, admittedly, were intelligently conceived and
carried out.  His error—a fundamental one—lay in his
ignorance of Quinney's character.  Like Susan, who
had been carried away by her maternal emotions;
like Posy, who was still in her salad days, he had
taken for granted that Quinney did prefer things to
persons.

"May I put my case this way, sir?  As your
prospective son-in-law, working hard in and for your
interest, do I not present serious claims upon your
attention?"

Quinney stared at him.  This was, indeed, a
"plant," skilfully prepared by a rascal and
fortune-hunter.  He said roughly:

"Cut that prospective son-in-law cackle!  As
yourself, my lad, you do present very serious claims
indeed upon my attention."

"Have it as you please, Mr. Quinney."

"That's exactly how I mean to have it."

"What have you against me, sir?"

Quinney had been pacing the room restlessly.  He
stopped suddenly, opposite James, within two feet
of his pale face.

"You ain't honest; you ain't straight; you ain't
fit to marry an honest girl!"

James raised his eyebrows.

"Isn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle
black?"

"Yes, it is.  We're both pots—dirty pots.  How
dirty I someway never saw till to-night.  But my
Posy is porcelain—clean, dainty porcelain.  You
can't touch her without defilin' her.  Now—scoot!"

"Without settling anything?"

"You shall be settled to-morrow.  Don't worry."

The young man smiled.

"You are wise, sir, to take a night to sleep over it."

"Done talkin'?"

"For to-night, yes."

"Good!  Because with every extra word you're
givin' yourself dead away.  Easier to marry money
than to make it, hey?  Kennel up, you puppy!"

The puppy snarled at this, but withdrew.



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Alone, Quinney opened the cupboard beneath the
china cabinet, taking from it a cut-glass decanter
half-filled with brown sherry, and two glasses, which
he placed upon his desk.  Then he summoned Susan.
She drifted in rather helplessly, somewhat of a wreck
after the storm.  Quinney ensconced her in a chair,
filled the two glasses with wine, and pushed one
across the desk to Susan.  She shook her head.

"Drink it, you old spoof-sticks!  Lordy, Sue, I
didn't know you had it in yer!  What a spirit!  What
a little tigress!"

He tossed off his glass, smacking his lips.

"I meant it, Joe."

"Tch! tch!  In two sticks you'll have my pore leg
pulled out of shape."

"I meant it, every word of it."

"What?  You'd leave the best and kindest hubby
in the world?"

"I'd leave a crool, heartless father."

For answer, Quinney seized his empty glass and
slammed it down upon the desk, smashing it riotously.
Susan said in the same weak, obstinate tone: "Do
that to her dear heart, you would."  He snatched at
the full glass, and hurled that to the floor.  Susan
merely observed: "Another two shillings gone!"

"Two shillings?  Ten!  Old Bristol!  Lovely stuff!"

"There you go again."

"Ho!  You really think I care about money?"

"Yes, I do."

"Well, I don't.  You say I care about things.  So
I do.  But things have been a means to an end with
me.  Never mind that now.  If you don't know yer
luck in havin' Joe Quinney for a husband, he's too
busy a man to learn ye.  I want to talk about
something else.  This James Miggott's a bad lad.  He's
threatening me."

The word challenged Susan's attention.

"Threatening you, Joe?  What about?"

Quinney's high colour deepened.  Susan had
cornered him.  His voice became less masterful.

"Never you mind what about!  He ain't goin' to
down me that way."

Susan glanced sharply at her husband.  He tried
to meet her honest eyes, but failed.  The impulse
surged within him to confess, to ask forgiveness, to
promise to run straight for the future.  The horns of
the dilemma pierced his vitals.  How could he expose
James without revealing himself stark naked to the
wife whose good opinion was dearer to him than all
the treasures in his sanctuary?  She beheld him
squirming, and hastened to draw the wrong
conclusion.  James, of course—gallant youth—had
threatened to take Posy without her stockings.
She said tartly:

"James is fighting for our Posy."

"No, he ain't.  He's fighting—and hittin' below
the belt, too—for things.  These things."

"I don't believe it."

"Right!  You can believe this, I shall fight to a
finish.  No quarter—see?"

"Very well.  Good-night!"

She rose, whey-faced, but resolute.

"What d'ye mean by 'good-night'?"

"I'm going to sleep with Posy."

"You ain't?"

"Yes, I am!"

She went out slowly, not closing the door.  Quinney
listened to her familiar steps as she mounted the
oak stairs.  She ascended higher and higher till she
reached Posy's room.  Quinney heard the door shut,
and then—significant sound—the click of a turning key.

He appeared confounded.





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   CHAPTER XXI


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   MABEL DREDGE

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   \I

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Quinney telephoned early the next morning to Tom
Tomlin, asking him to come to Soho Square before
ten.  Posy did not descend to breakfast, and during
that meal Susan preserved an obstinate silence.
Quinney gobbled up his bacon, drank three cups of
tea, and hurried to the sanctuary, where a pile of
letters left unanswered the day before awaited him.
Mabel Dredge, notebook in hand, greeted him
perfunctorily.  Quinney, lacerated by his own anxieties,
noted a dreary tone in the girl's voice.  Many
excellent persons never recognize trouble in others till
they are suffering from trouble of their own.  Of such
was our hero.  He had passed a wretched night, and,
as he shaved, was constrained to perceive its ravages
upon his face.  Upon Mabel's face, also, he seemed to
catch a glimpse of faint lines and shadows, as if the
spider Insomnia had woven a web across it.

"Anything wrong?" he inquired.

"Nothing," replied Mabel tartly.

He sat down at his desk, glancing at the morning's
letters, arranged by Mabel in a neat little pile.  The
topmost letter contained Hunsaker's cheque for
eleven hundred pounds, and a few cordial lines
reminding his dear sir that he hoped to call at eleven,
and that he might bring a friend with him, an expert
of Chippendale furniture.  Quinney frowned, resenting
the introduction of an expert.  But he reflected
comfortably that the chairs were already cased.  He
opened the other letters, and then began to deal
faithfully with each correspondent in turn.  He
dictated these letters after his own fashion.  It was
Mabel's task to adjust grammatical errors and to
eliminate slang.  He had grown fond of Mabel
because she was competent and tactful.

"I think that will do, my dear."

Mabel rose quietly, shutting her notebook.  She
used a small room, where she kept her machine and
a copying-press and other paraphernalia appertaining
to secretarial duties.  Unconsciously, she sighed.

"Lookin' peaky, you are," said her employer.

Mabel retorted indifferently:

"Weather affects me.  Seems even to have
affected you, sir."

"Ho!  Observant young miss!  But you're wrong.
Weather don't affect me; and it oughtn't to affect a
healthy young woman like you.  Sleep badly?"

"Ye-es."

"Same here."

The need of sympathy gripped him.  He was so
sorry for himself that he felt sorry for this
white-faced typist, whom hitherto he had regarded as a
machine.

"Beastly, ain't it?"  She nodded, and he continued,
speaking rather to himself than to her: "To
toss about, tinglin' all over, with one's thoughts in a
ferment!  Perfectly disgustin'!"

Mabel smiled faintly.

"I've a lot on my mind just now," he went on,
"a bigger load than I care to carry—immense
responsibilities, see?"

She opened her eyes, wondering what had evoked
this amazing confidence, little guessing that the habit
of years was behind it.  He had always talked to
Susan about his affairs, poured them into ears now
deaf in the hour of sorest need.

"Sit down," he commanded.  "There's no hurry.
I'm expecting Mr. Tomlin."

"I beg your pardon; I forgot to mention it.  I
have a message from Mr. Miggott.  His respects, and
he wants to see you if you can spare a few minutes."

"Ho!  Well, I can't see him yet.  He must wait
my convenience.  Sit you down!"

Mabel obeyed, blushing slightly, because Quinney's
eyes were so piercing.  She was quite unaware that
she had betrayed herself in the pronunciation of a
name.  At no other time, probably, would Quinney
have leapt to the conclusion that James was behind
her trouble as certainly as he was behind his own.
He hated James.  It hurt him to hear his name softly
murmured.

"Any of your people ill, my dear?"

"No."

"Not in debt, are you?"

"Certainly not."

"Not sufferin' from neuralgia, or toothache, or
anything of that sort?"

"I am in excellent health, sir."

"Then, my girl, you're in love."

Her confusion answered him.  She was angry,
indignant, scornful; but she could not prevent the
red blood rushing into her cheeks.  She retorted
sharply:

"That's none of your business, sir!"

Quinney chuckled.  A ray of light flashed across
his dark horizon.

"Don't be too sure o' that, my dear.  Perhaps it
is my business; anyway, I'm going to make it my
business, because I take a fatherly interest in you."

"I can manage my own affairs, Mr. Quinney."

"No, you can't.  Look ye here.  I'm a wonderful
guesser—always was.  You like James Miggott.
Nothing to be ashamed of in that.  I'll be bound he
likes you!"

Mabel fidgeted.  Quinney's voice was kind.  It
rang true.  The desire to confide in this odd little
man, so masterful, so persuasive when he chose, grew
as swiftly as Jack the Giant Killer's beanstalk.

"Doesn't he like you?" he asked insistently.

"He used to like me," she answered mournfully.

"Ah!  Now, Mabel, there are just as good fish in
the sea as ever came out of it."

"And what time have I to catch fish?"

"S'pose you was my daughter, I shouldn't like
you to marry James.  This is on the strict Q.T., just
between me and you, James was a faker of old
furniture till he came to me."

"He's no better, I dare say, and no worse, than
other men in his trade!"

"Tch! tch!  He's lucky to have a nice girl to stick
up for him.  Now, my dear"—his voice became very
soft and confidential—"you say that James used to
like you.  Why has he cooled off, hey?"

She answered miserably:

"I don't know."

"Cheer up!  Maybe I can help you.  Lordy!  Don't
cry!  Answer me this—straight.  Do you still want
him?"

"Ye-es."

It was a doleful, long-drawn-out monosyllable,
eloquent of much left unsaid.  Quinney nodded
sympathetically, although his small eyes were
sparkling.

"At one time, I take it, you thought he was yours?"

She was too overcome to utter a word.

"Do you believe that he likes somebody else?"  He
paused, waiting for an answer.  She twisted her
fingers, refused to meet his eyes, moved restlessly.
He went on, playing upon her emotions:

"Do you know who that somebody is?  Come, be
square with me, my dear.  Is it a young lady who
shall remain nameless—a young lady lately returned
from school; a young lady whom James Miggott
will never marry—never?"

His suppressed excitement communicated itself to
her.  She was clever enough to understand exactly
what he wished to convey.  She glanced up and
nodded.  Quinney drew in his breath sharply; his
manner changed.

"And you still want him?"

"Yes."

"Queer creatures you women are, to be sure!"

"We can't pick and choose like men."

"If you want him, you shall have him."

She shook her head dubiously.

"You don't know James, sir."

"Ho!  Don't I?  Better than you know him,
better than he knows himself.  I'll help you, my girl,
but you must help me."

"How?"

He got up and stood beside her.  She watched him
with a certain fascination, curiously sensible of his
power over her and others.  The native confidence
that he had in himself percolated slowly through her.

"Tell me truly what has passed between you and
this young man."

She was expecting any question except this.  The
audacity of it overwhelmed her, as he had foreseen
that it would.  She broke down, sobbing bitterly,
hiding her face from the keen eyes looking down into
her very soul.  Quinney laid his hand upon her head
tenderly.  For the moment this strangely-assorted
pair, linked together by an interest common to each,
yet antagonistic to each, stood together upon a plane
high above that on which they moved habitually.

"I ain't no saint," said Quinney solemnly.  "And
I tell you this, Mabel Dredge, I've been through hell
during the past twelve hours; and I'm not out of it
yet.  Stand up, you poor dear!  Look me in the face,
for then you'll know that you can trust me.  Give
me your hand—so!  It's a nice little hand.  Ought
there to be a wedding-ring on it?"

"Yes," she whispered.



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Susan came in shortly after Mabel had gone.  Her
face was very troubled, but obstinacy sat enthroned
upon a head carried at a higher angle than usual.
Quinney said facetiously:

"Come to throw yourself at my feet and ask
forgiveness?"

"Certainly not."

"Meant all you said last night?"

"Every word of it."

"What is Posy doing?"

"Crying her eyes out, I dare say."

"Sounds sloppy."

"Mr. Tomlin is here.  Hateful man!  I suppose
he'll side with you!"

"That remains to be seen.  I doubt it.  Ask Tom
to step up."

Susan went out with dignity.

Tomlin had been to a banquet the night before,
and bore the signs of intemperance in eating and
drinking upon his large mottled face.  He greeted
Quinney sulkily, unable to purge his mind of the
conviction that Soho Square ought to come to Bond
Street.  He asked thickly:

"Ever suffer from indigestion?"

"Never."

"I do," said Tomlin gloomily.  He added with
finality: "Port, even the best, atop o' bubbly wine
is a mistake after fifty.  What you want me for,
young Joe?"

"Glad I look young, Tom.  I don't feel it this
morning."

Tomlin stared at him.

"Blest if you ain't made a night of it, too."

"Here's something to cheer us up."

He pushed across the desk Hunsaker's cheque for
eleven hundred pounds.  Tomlin's heavy features
relaxed into a smile.  Quinney scribbled some figures
on a memorandum pad, and invited his colleague to
verify them.  The sum represented the exact amount
due to Tomlin as his share of the plunder.

"Quite O.K., Joe."

"Like your bit o' ready now?"

"Never refuse cash, my lad."

Quinney wrote out a cheque, and a receipt.  Tomlin
accepted the cheque, placing it in a bulky pocket-book.
He glared askance at the receipt, which set
forth that the sum just paid was a commission upon
the sale of eight chairs to Cyrus P. Hunsaker, of
Hunsaker.

"Why this receipt, Joe?  Ain't a cheque a receipt?"

Quinney answered curtly:

"A cheque don't show what money is paid for.
My way of doin' business."

"No complaints."

He chuckled fatly, raising his thick eyebrows when
Quinney observed lightly:

"What we done the day before yesterday was a
leetle bit dangerous, old man.  Sailin' too near the
reefs—um?"

Tomlin replied pompously:

"Skilled navigators, my lad, do sail near the reefs.
I wouldn't assume such risks with another man."

"But you did!"

"What do you mean, Joe?"

"James Miggott is in the know."

"Of course, but he's had his little bit."

"Yes; but he wants more!"

"The swine!"  He stared at Quinney, beholding
upon the whimsical face of his pupil writing which
he could not read.  "What's up?" he spluttered.

"I am," said Quinney, rising; "and stripped for
the fight of my life."

Tomlin stirred uneasily.

"A fight, Joe?  Who with?"

Quinney answered fiercely:

"That dirty dog, James Miggott.  He wants
more than what we gave him.  See?  He wants my
Posy."

Tomlin exhibited marked relief.

"Your Posy?  Don't blame him for wanting her."

"You hold hard!  Young Posy wants him."

"Gawd bless my soul!  She's not the judge o'
quality he is."

"And Susan backs 'em up.  That fairly tears it."

Tomlin looked puzzled, unable to account for the
younger man's excitement.  He considered that Joe,
unlike himself, was incapable of managing his
womenfolk.

"Between 'em, Tom, they've got a strangle hold
on us."

"Us?  What have I to do with your fam'ly matters?"

"I sent for you to tell you.  Now, first and last,
they'll never have my consent, never!  But, by
thunder!  I refuse my consent, not because the
dog's my servant, but because he isn't straight.  He's
no better than you and me."

Tomlin glared at his former pupil, who stood over
him, waving a denunciatory hand.

"You speak for yourself, young man."

"I ain't young.  We're both of us old enough to
know better and do better, but we've had to make
our way.  Maybe I've been honester than you,
maybe I haven't.  I ain't whining, least of all to
you.  We're in a deep hole of our own making.  And
we must get out of it.  I told this James Miggott
last night that we was pots, just common pots,
sailin' down the stream with other pots.  But my
little Posy's porcelain, the finest paste, the gem o'
my collection.  Susan accuses me of caring for
things, these things.  So I do; so do you; that's
why we've struggled to the front.  And this son of a
gun loves things, and what they stand for.  He's
after my things, but he's clever enough to have
bluffed two innercent females into believin' that he
wants my Posy without 'em."

Tomlin blinked and nodded, stupefied by the
terrific feeling displayed by Quinney.  His headache
had come back, that humiliating sense of "unfitness"
which clouded his judgment, leaving him
dazed and irritable.  Nor, as yet, had he grasped
the situation, or measured the depth of the hole to
which Quinney alluded.  The little man went on:

"I've called his bluff, if it is bluff.  I've told him
that he can take Posy, march her out of this house
as she is."

"What did he say to that?"

"I should have downed him, but, by Gum, the
old lady butted in.  Swore solemn she'd leave my
house, if I turned Posy out.  She means it, too!"

"A good riddance," snarled Tomlin.

Quinney exploded, shaking his clenched fist in
front of the huge, red face.

"What?  I'd have you to know, Tom Tomlin,
that my Susan and me have stuck together through
thick and thin.  I think the world of her, but she's
without guile, bless her, and as obstinate as Balaam's
ass!"

"S'pose you tell me where I come in?"

"Here and now, by the back-door!  This dirty
dog threatens to down me with the true story of them
chairs.  And he'll do it, too.  Now, let this soak in
together with all that port and champagne you
swallered last night.  If he downs me, he downs
you!  Got it?"

Assuredly Tomlin had "got it."  He began to
shake with impotent rage, growling out:

"Threatens to split?  I'd like to tell that young
man exactly what I think of him."

"You can," said Quinney derisively; "but it
will do you more good than him, I reckon.  We'll
send for him in a jiffy.  Ever notice my typist and
stenographer, Miss Dredge?"

"Yes, many a time.  Nice-lookin' gal."

"This maggot of a Miggott has been eatin' into
her young affections, see?"

"Has he?  The young man has taste, Joe.
Reg'lar lady-killer!"

Quinney lowered his voice:

"It's a weapon, but I don't rely on it.  I can't
use it, in fairness to Mabel, till we stand in the last
ditch."

"Why not?  Got to think of ourselves, ain't we?"

Tomlin pulled out an immense silk bandana, and
mopped a heated brow.

"It's two-edged, Tom.  You ain't yourself this
morning, or you'd see, with your knowledge of the
fair sex, that Posy might be keener on gettin' this
scamp, if she learned that another woman was
after him.  We'll try to handle Master Miggott
first."

He crossed to the speaking-tube, and summoned
James to the sanctuary.  Then he sat down, very
erect and austere, at his desk.



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Presently James entered, carrying his head at the
angle affected by Susan, looking very bland and
self-confident.

"Good-morning, Mr. Tomlin!  Good-morning,
Mr. Quinney!"

Quinney acknowledged this salutation with a
derisive grin.

"Mornin', Mr. Chesty!  Bin usin' a Sandow's
exerciser?"

"No, sir; Indian clubs.  Am I to state my case
before Mr. Tomlin?"

"Yes.  Go ahead and state it.  Don't waste my
time, or his, or your own."

James addressed himself suavely to Tomlin,
selecting his words carefully, speaking slowly, with
the utmost respect.

"Last night, Mr. Quinney threatened to turn his
daughter into the street, because she's engaged to
be married to me."

"My hand was forced, my lad.  Go on."

"I can support a wife, and Miss Quinney is ready
to marry me by special licence this afternoon."

"Quite sure o' that?"

"Ab—solutely.  Unhappily, I'm not yet in a
financial position to support two ladies."

"Two ladies?" echoed Quinney, thinking of
Mabel Dredge.

"I allude, sir, to Mrs. Quinney.  She insists upon
leaving you, if her child is turned out.  That rather
complicates matters."

"It does," said Quinney grimly.

"Under these circumstances, gentlemen, I feel
justified in bringing pressure to bear.  Mr. Hunsaker,
who bought certain chairs yesterday, will call
again this morning.  He is naturally interested in
the history of the chairs; and he might make trouble
if he knew all the facts about them as known to you,
Mr. Tomlin, to Mr. Quinney, and to me.  I may add
that my responsibility in the affair is negligible."

"Slick talker," muttered Quinney.  He could see
that Tomlin was much impressed by James's manner.
The big fellow grunted uneasily:

"What do you propose?"

"A compromise, Mr. Tomlin."

Quinney lost something of his dignity, when he
jerked out:

"He's compromised my Posy, and many another
pore girl, I'll be bound!"

"Pardon me, sir.  That sort of talk before a
witness is libellous."

The last rag of Quinney's dignity fluttered away.

"I'll down you, my lad; yes, I will!"

"Self-preservation being the first law, sir, I
must—sorely against the grain—down you first.  Excuse
plain speaking."

Quinney jumped up.

"I like plain speaking!  I was weaned on it,
short-coated on it!  By Gum! my father damned
me before I was born!"

"Easy all," murmured Tomlin nervously.  He
addressed James with a civility which the young
man acknowledged with a faint smile.  "Do I
understand that you threaten to down your master
because he refuses to sanction an engagement
between you and his daughter?"

James shrugged his shoulders.

"It's a case of 'pull, devil—pull, baker!'  I
mean to pull for all I'm worth."

Quinney interrupted furiously:

"And what are you worth, Lord Rothschild?"

Tomlin held up a large hand, not too clean, upon
which sparkled a diamond ring.

"You spoke of compromise, James?"

"Yes, sir.  I suggest that my engagement to
Miss Quinney should be sanctioned and recognized.
I will stay on here, and demonstrate to Mr. Quinney
my claims to be taken on later as a junior partner.
Unless Miss Quinney of her own will cancels the
engagement, the marriage will take place——"

"Never!" shouted Quinney.

James smiled deprecatingly.

"Shall I retire, gentlemen?  You have time to
talk things over.  Mr. Hunsaker will not be here for
another hour yet."

Tomlin nodded portentously:

"Yes, yes; leave us."



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Tomlin was the first to break an ominous silence:

"The long and short of it is, Joe, that this young
feller can ruin us, rob us of our hard-earned
reputations.  We must square him."

"Money?  He wants money and Posy!"

Tomlin stroked his chin pensively.  It occurred
to him that so sharp a practitioner as James Miggott
would never come to grief.  As a suitor for one of
his three daughters, he would not consider him too
rashly as ineligible.

"Posy might do worse," he muttered.

"Ho!  That's it.  Sidin' with them?  Thought
you might!"

"Face the music, Joe!  We're hanged, high as
Haman, unless the ladies come to the rescue.  It's a
bit thick his threatenin' you.  How does Posy take
that—um?"

"How can I tell her what he's threatening to
do?  James knows that, the dog!"

"You can hint at unpleasantness.  Posy ought to
know that her young man is buckin' about ruining
you."

"Maybe you'd like to talk to Susan and Posy?"

"I should.  I understand women; you don't."

"You shall talk to 'em."

He hurried to the door, and through it on to the
landing.

"Susan!—Su—san!"

Susan's voice was heard descending from above:

"Is that you calling, Joe?"

"Who did yer think it was?  The Archbishop o'
Canterbury or the First Lord of the Admiralty?
Come you down quick, and bring Posy with you."

He stumped back into the sanctuary to confront
Tomlin's scornful face.

"That the way you talk to an angry woman?
Had any words with Mrs. Quinney this morning?"

"I've been talking to her and at her, off and on,
ever since breakfast."

"Pore, dear soul!" ejaculated Tomlin.





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   CHAPTER XXII


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   A TEST

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   \I

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Posy may have been crying, but the colour and
sparkle remained in her eyes; and she had arrayed
herself in a smart and becoming costume, which
Quinney recognized as "Sunday best."  Let women
decide what motive animated this preening.  If she
were to be turned out of Soho Square, Posy, not
unreasonably, may have decided to take her prettiest
frock with her.  On the other hand, with equal
wisdom, she may have thought that the sight of a
charming young woman in all her bravery is likely
to melt the heart of the sternest man.  Because she
appeared on this momentous morning fresh and
alluring, let us not accuse her of heartlessness.  If
destined by Fate to lose a father, she would gain a
husband.  Poor Susan, limp and bedraggled, was
miserably sensible that victory for her would inflict
consequences more crushing than defeat.

"Goin' to church?" Quinney inquired of his daughter.

Posy replied respectfully:

"Only if driven there by you."

Tomlin, rumbling and grumbling after his dietical
indiscretions, greeted the young lady with a phrase
often on his lips:

"Seasonable weather for the time of year?"

Susan glanced at him scornfully, and said audibly:

"Fiddle!"

Quinney apologized for this breach of politeness
after his own fashion:

"Be'ind the door, she was, Tom, when they
collected threepence a head for manners.  Now, sit
you down!"

Tomlin waved a half-consumed cigar, addressing
Susan:

"Any objections to my smoking, ma'am?"

"Not she," replied her husband, "neither in this
world nor the next.  You go on and talk to her.
You understand women.  Open fire on 'em!"

"May I say a few words, ma'am?"

"Provided they are few, you may, Mr. Tomlin."

Driven to the wall, she made no effort to conceal
her dislike of this big fat man, whom she had ever
regarded as an evil influence in her Joe's life.
Quinney exclaimed:

"'Ark to Mrs. Don't-care-a-damn!"

Tomlin raised a protesting finger.

"Tut, tut, Joe.  You leave this to me."

He continued majestically, picking his words:

"I don't think you can be aware, ma'am, that
James Miggott is threatening your husband, and"—he
turned to Posy—"your dear father."

Susan snapped out:

"Joe told me as much last night.  I know well
what James is threatening.  He's not the only man
of his word in this house.  He's threatening to take
the girl he loves as she is.  He's not thinking of
anything else.  He's made it plain that he's only to hold
up his finger, and Posy'll go to him gladly."

"Just what I told you, Tom," remarked Quinney.

"You're under a misapprehension, ma'am.  Miggott
is threatening us—me and Joe."

At this Posy became more alert, listening attentively
to Tomlin, but keeping her clear eyes upon her
sire.  Susan betrayed astonishment.

"Threatening you, Mr. Tomlin?  Why should he
threaten you, and why should you care tuppence
whether he threatens you or not?"

Very deprecatingly, Tomlin spread out his large
hands, palm uppermost, as if he wished the ladies to
infer that he came empty-handed into a fight not of
his seeking.

"I repeat, ma'am, he's threatening us.  He's
talking of trying to ruin us."

"Talkin' through his hat," murmured Quinney.

Susan tossed her head impatiently.

"You'll have to speak more plainly, Mr. Tomlin,
if you wish me to understand what you're driving at."

Tomlin, cornered by Susan's direct methods in
striking opposition to his own, fetched a compass, and
began again more warily:

"Is it possible that you contemplate leaving the
most faithful husband in the world, ma'am?"

Quinney chuckled, rubbing his hands.

"That's better.  Now, Susie, you listen to Tom,
if you won't listen to me."

"I've listened patiently to you, Joe, for just
twenty years.  It's about time I did a bit of talking,
and that you did the listening."

"Ho!  Been bottling things up, have you?"  She
nodded.  "Then you uncork yourself, old dear!
But, before you begin, I'll try to impress this on your
female mind.  This dirty dog of a James Miggott is
threatening me and Tom.  He believes that he can
injure our reputations in the trade.  See?  Tom,
here, thinks that he'll do it, if I refuse to surrender.
Well, I don't.  That's where he and me differ.  But,
just as sure as the Lord made little apples and small,
mean souls, it's the solid truth that this young man
is tryin' to blackmail me!  Now you have the text,
dearie.  Get you up and preach a sermon on it.
Posy, in her Sunday clothes, will listen, and so will I.
But bear in mind that you took me for better or worse."

Tomlin added unctuously:

"And please remember, ma'am, that you have to
consider me."

Susan eyed Tomlin with chill indifference.  Her
voice was almost vitriolic, as she remarked:

"If I'm driven from house and home, Mr. Tomlin,
'tain't likely I shall waste much time considering
you!"

"Who's driving you, ma'am, from house and home?"

"My husband is, more shame to him!"

She collected her energies for a supreme effort,
turning in her chair to look at the tyrant.

"Blaze away!" said the tyrant.

"Joe"—her voice trembled in spite of a gallant
effort to control it—"you are forcing me to do the
cruellest thing in all the world—to choose between
my own child and you.  I ain't got your brains, but
I've something much better—a heart.  Posy wants
me, and you don't.  Let me finish.  It's bitter aloes
to me, but I swallow the gall of it for my dear child's
sake.  You used to love me!"

"Used?"

"Between you and me, that's over and done with."

She spoke very mournfully, brushing a tear from
her cheek.

"No, it ain't, Susie.  Seemin'ly, what I've done
to show my love for you ain't enough.  S'pose you
tell me what more I might do?"

She answered swiftly:

"Give your consent to Posy marrying, as I
did—marrying the man of her choice.  Have you anything
against his moral character?"

"He's a wrong 'un; take that from me!"

"Not without proof.  What's he done that's
wrong?  He don't muddle his wits with food and
drink.  He don't use filthy tobacco.  He attends
Divine Service."

"Ho!  Poor in this world's goods, but a moral
millionaire, hey?"

"It's hateful to hear you sneer at him!"

"You ask me to give my daughter to a dog that's
trying to bite the hand that fed him?"

"Posy might do worse," said Tomlin hoarsely.

"Now you've torn it!" said Quinney viciously.
"I'm alone against the lot of you.  Good!  I'll down
the lot of you, I'll——"

Posy interrupted:

"Father!"

"Well, my girl?"

She spoke incisively, with something of his manner:

"You won't answer one important question.
What is James threatening to do to you and Mr. Tomlin?"

Poor Quinney!  He had only to speak with entire
frankness to win his Susan back.  But at what a cost!
Could he roll in the dust of a humiliating confession?
Unconsciously he clenched his fists, setting his firm
jaw at an even more aggressive angle.  In desperation
he clutched at a straw.  If he must be dragged
down from his high estate as the honestest dealer in
the world, let that iconoclastic deed be done by
another hand.

"Look ye here, my girl, suppose you ask James
that question."

"I want to ask him," she replied calmly.

"Fine!" muttered Tomlin.  "Yes, my dear, you
ask him why he dares to threaten your dear father."

"And you," said Posy.

"That's right.  And me.  More than one good tip
he's had from me."

"Tips?  Why should you tip him?"

"You can ask him.  There's no time to waste."

"No time to waste?"

The situation had become tenser.  Quinney perceived
with a certain pride that Posy was demonstrating
the quality of brains inherited from him.

"Go to him," said Quinney.  "He's in his room.
We'll wait here."

She obeyed.



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   \II

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As soon as James saw Posy coming alone to him,
he leapt triumphantly to the conclusion that her
father had hauled down his flag.  With a joyous
exclamation he hastened to embrace her, but she
turned a cool cheek to ardent lips.

"Father sent me to you, Jim."

"I knew he'd climb down!"

"But he hasn't.  Jim, dear, what do you mean by
threatening father and—and Mr. Tomlin?"

The eager smile faded out of his face.  He remained
silent, marshalling his wits.

"Have you received tips from Mr. Tomlin?"

"He's paid me for work done."

"What sort of work?"

"Restoring old bits of stuff.  What has that got to
do with us?"

She followed her thoughts, not his questions.

"And why is there all this hurry?  Mr. Tomlin
said just now that there was no time to waste."

"He's right; there isn't!"

"But why?"

Her voice was gently insistent.  She laid her hand
softly upon the sleeve of his coat, as if entreating him
to trust her, as she trusted him.

"It's like this, Posy.  I told you last night that I
could deal with your father, that the right moment
had come to deal with him.  Now, give me a free hand!"

"Mr. Tomlin spoke, not very clearly, about your
being able to ruin father and him.  Father denies
that!"

"Does he?"

Posy grew nervous, the colour ebbed from her
cheeks; into her eyes flitted a shadow of fear.  Her
sharp wits were at work adding and subtracting,
fitting together this jig-saw puzzle.

At this moment, her memory answered oddly to
the strain imposed upon it.  In this room, before the
*coup de foudre*, her father had spoken roughly to her,
ordering her out of it with a peremptoriness apparently
quite unjustifiable, because she was on an
errand connected with his business.  This tiny fact
had rankled.  James had asked her for a bottle of
cleaning fluid.

Suddenly, out of the pigeon-holes of her mind,
tumbled the covers of the chairs which James
wanted to clean.  The very pattern of the exquisite
needlework presented itself.

"Oh!" she exclaimed.

"What's the matter, dearest?  This excitement
has been too much for you.  Do let me handle your
father.  Believe me, I can do it in our joint interest."

She gazed at him queerly, a tiny, vertical line
between her dark eyebrows.

"Has father done something dishonest?"

The colour rushed back into her cheeks as she
spoke, but her eyes remained upon his.  When he
made no reply, she continued:

"Are you threatening to expose some fraud, a
fraud connected with—chairs?"

"God!  You are clever!" said James, unable to
hide his admiration, or to believe that she had
swooped upon the truth.

She sighed.

"Then it is true."

There was no interrogation in those four words.

"Well, yes; it is true."  He hurried on, fearing
that she might interrupt him.  "I wanted to spare
you knowledge of that.  Fortune has placed in my
hands a weapon.  I am using it for both our sakes.
Between our two selves, my dearest, I can admit to
you that I should not really ruin your father.  What
an idea!"

"Then you are bluffing?"

"I am.  I want you so desperately."

He attempted to kiss her, but she repulsed him
gently.

"If mother knew——"

"She need not know.  Your father will climb down
at the last moment.  He knows, and Tomlin knows,
that I can ruin both of them."

"It's as bad as that?"

"Yes.  He must surrender!"

"But if he shouldn't?  Jim, dear, you said last
night that you would take me as I am; and I loved
you for saying that.  Now, you want to bargain for me."

"To bargain for you, darling; not for myself."

She nodded, accepting his explanation, able to put
herself in his place.  Beholding the situation from
his point of view, panoramically, she tried, in turn,
to see the same situation from the point of view of her
father.  She exclaimed softly:

"Gracious!"

The expression upon her face puzzled James.  Men,
even the cleverest, can follow women's bodies easier
than their thoughts.

"Try to be sensible about this," he murmured.

"It's so exciting.  Don't you see that this is a test
of father, a wonderful test!"

"Of what?"

"Of his love for me, of his love for mother."

"Eh?"

"Don't be dense, Jim!  Mother has accused father
of not caring much for us; but, if he risks ruin for
our sake, he does care."

"Pooh!  He's bluffing, too!"

"I am not certain of that.  Anyway"—her face
cleared; she beamed at him delightfully—"I should
like you to make good, Jim, without horrid threats,
without bluffing.  Take me as I am, if you want me.
You can earn a good living anywhere.  I'm not afraid
of a little poverty with you."

"You don't know what poverty is, Posy.  I do.
I'm afraid of poverty for the woman I care about."

"Do you mean that you refuse to take me as I am?"

Bathos and pathos are twins.  James passed, with
an unconsidered bound, from climax to anticlimax.
He said irritably:

"Hang it all!  I shall have to take your mother,
too.  Posy, we haven't time to argue this.  Hunsaker
will be here directly.  Luck has thrust into my hands
a tremendous lever; and I mean to use it."

"Is that your last word?"

"Yes, it is.  I'm fighting for you, fighting to a
finish.  And ever since the world began, women have
had to look on at such a fight——"

"And take the winner?"

She laughed derisively.

"I shall be the winner!"

"Come up and tell father so."

"Right!"

"Mother and I will look on."



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   \III

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They went upstairs in silence, to find Tomlin
reading the paper, and Susan engaged in dusting the
china.

"Where's father?" asked Posy.

"Busy with Mabel Dredge.  I'll fetch him."

Posy sat down.  From her face it was impossible
to divine what was passing through her brain.  She
folded her hands upon her lap and waited.

Quinney appeared, followed by Susan.  He glared
at James, and then fixed his gaze upon Posy.

"Well, my girl?"

She said demurely:

"It's to be a fight to a finish for me."

"Damn!" said Tomlin.

Susan wandered to the window, staring aimlessly
into the square.  She heard Tomlin saying hoarsely:

"Joe, you take my advice; let the girl have the
man she wants.  S'elp me, if one o' my daughters
took a shine to him, she should have him!  You're
fairly downed, old man, and you know it.  This
Hunsaker will be here before we can turn round!"

"He is here," said Susan, turning from the window.





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   CHAPTER XXIII


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   THE RESULT

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   \I

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Susan was somewhat astonished at the effect of her
announcement upon those present.  She added,
after a pause:

"A middle-aged gentleman is with him."

"Ho!" ejaculated Quinney.  Evidently Hunsaker
had brought the expert to Soho Square.  He said
sharply to James:

"Go downstairs, and bring these gentlemen up
here!"

James glanced at Posy, and then at Quinney.

"You mean that, sir?"

"Of course I mean it!  Scoot!"

Tomlin's mottled countenance deepened in tint.
He rose from his chair and approached Quinney.
James moved slowly towards the door, but he heard
Tomlin's hoarse whisper:

"Better give in, Joe."

Quinney answered loudly:

"Never!"

"We can't face the music, if he squeals."

"I can."  He addressed the company generally,
in a fierce voice: "You mark what I say—all of you.
I'd sooner be ruined, lock, stock, and barrel, than
give my daughter to that man!"

He pointed at James, whose self-possession was
beginning to fail him.  "What are you waiting for?"
he demanded.  "Do as I tell you.  Ask Mr. Hunsaker
and his friend, with my compliments, to come here!"

James vanished silently, as Tomlin muttered:

"I'll retire."

Instantly Quinney interposed his small, sturdy
figure between the big dealer and the door.

"No, you don't, Tom Tomlin!  Shoulder to
shoulder with me, old man, till the last shot is fired!"

"I wish I knew what it is all about," said Susan
to Posy.  In a louder voice she addressed her
husband:

"Maybe Posy and I had better leave you?"

"Please yourselves," said Quinney.  His eyes were
sparkling, and his short, red hair bristled with
excitement and the lust of battle.

"As they are fighting for me," said Posy, "I'll
stay."

Susan observed in utter bewilderment:

"I've looked on all my life, and I can do it a little
longer."

She turned to Posy, with the intention of asking
for some sort of explanation; but Posy had gone up
to her father.

"Daddy!"

Quinney replied roughly:

"Too late to say you're sorry now, my girl!"

"But I'm not sorry.  I'm ever so glad.  Whether
you are right or wrong about Jim, it is everything—yes,
everything—to me to know that you really
meant what you said just now."

She went back to her mother as Hunsaker's genial
voice was heard coming up the stairs:

"Yes, sir, a sanctuary; and not a thing in it for
sale!"



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The two visitors entered, followed by James.
Tomlin gasped when he beheld Hunsaker's companion,
a celebrity known to all the great dealers in
two hemispheres.  He was short, rather stout, and
very quietly dressed, with a fine head set upon
rounded shoulders.  The face was heavy-featured
and saturnine, the face of a man who had lived a
strenuous life, a fighter and a conqueror.  Hunsaker
pronounced his name with pride:

"Mr. Quinney, this is Mr. Dupont Jordan."

"Glad to see you, Mr. Jordan," said Quinney.
He waved his hand.  "My wife and daughter."

The famous collector bowed to the ladies, and
nodded to Tomlin, who murmured obsequiously:

"Mr. Jordan has honoured me with his patronage."

Hunsaker's voice rose jovially above the murmurs:

"Mr. Jordan is interested in my chairs.  He
wants to see 'em.  What he doesn't know about
Chippendale furniture you could put into a
mustard-seed and hear it rattle."

"Dear me!" said Susan.  "That's a pity.  The
chairs are cased, I believe."

"Not all of them," said James.  "One chair is
still unpacked."

He stared boldly at Quinney, asking for a sign.
Quinney rubbed his hands.

"Good," said he.  "Go and fetch the chair, James."

"Fetch it here, sir?"

"At once, my lad."

Tomlin began to shake.  Of all men in the world,
Dupont Jordan was least to be desired at such a
moment.  Tomlin grew painfully moist and hot.
James left the room, slightly slamming the door, a
slam that sounded to Tomlin like the crack of doom.
Hunsaker, meanwhile, had engaged the ladies in talk.
Jordan stood beside Quinney, silent, but looking
with interest at the incised lacquer screen.  Quinney
said to him quietly:

"Is it true, Mr. Jordan, that you bought the
Pevensey chairs from Lark and Bundy?"

"Quite true, Mr. Quinney.  That is why I wish so
particularly to see Mr. Hunsaker's set, which I
understand are like mine."

Quinney said in a loud tone: "I'm sorry."

The tone rather than the words challenged attention.
Hunsaker stopped talking, staring at Quinney.

"Sorry?" repeated Jordan.

"Sorry, sir, that so busy a man should have come
here.  The chairs are like the Pevensey chairs, but
they are not authentic specimens.  I told Mr. Hunsaker
that we dealers was done sometimes."

"Often," murmured Tomlin mournfully.

"Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Tomlin and I discovered
that these chairs are not what they appear
to be."  He moved to his desk.  "Here is your
cheque, Mr. Hunsaker.  I return it."

"Suffering Moses!" exclaimed Hunsaker.

"I am sorry," said Quinney, "that Mr. Jordan
should be disappointed, but his verdict, no doubt,
will coincide with mine and Thomas Tomlin's."

"Finest fakes I ever saw in all my life," murmured
Tomlin.

Hunsaker stared at his cheque, and then held out
his hand to Quinney.

"By the Lord, sir, I'm proud to know you.
You're the straight goods."

"Give us time," said Tomlin, "and we'll find you
a genuine set."

The big fellow was almost, but not quite, at his
ease.  He admitted to himself that his former pupil
had risen to heights above his master.  Nevertheless,
the victory was not yet assured.  He continued
grandiloquently:

"We dealers are prepared to pay for our mistakes,
but we don't want 'em made public."

Hunsaker exclaimed with enthusiasm:

"You can bet your boots, Mr. Tomlin, that this
mistake won't be made public by me."

"Nor by me," said Jordan.  His heavy face had
brightened, his keen glance rested pleasantly upon
Quinney.  He had been told that this odd little man
never sold fakes except as such, and here was
confirmation strong of the astounding statement.
Tomlin he knew to be a plausible rogue, who was honest
only in his dealings with men like himself, recognized
experts.  Lark and Bundy he knew also as gentlemen
of the same kidney.  Quinney soared above his
experience of dealers—a unique specimen.

These thoughts were diverted by the entrance of
James, carrying the chair.  He set it down with a
flourish.  He believed that Quinney had such faith
in his powers as a faker of Chippendale furniture that
he dared to invite the inspection of an expert.  In a
sense it was a proud moment for him, when he heard
Quinney say:

"Now, Mr. Jordan, will you kindly pass judgment
on this chair?"

Jordan adjusted his pince-nez, and bent over it.
Quinney glanced at James.

"Stay you here, my lad."

James smiled triumphantly, interpreting these
words to mean surrender.  He collapsed like a
pricked bladder, when he heard Quinney say to
Jordan:

"Wonderful bit of fake work, Mr. Jordan, isn't it?"

"Half-and-half, I call it," observed Tomlin, noting
the effect on James.

"Yes," said Jordan slowly.  "This leg is genuine,
I should say, and that isn't.  Under a strong glass
one would perceive the difference."

He looked up to behold James quite unable to
control his emotions.  The lever in which he had
trusted was elevating Posy's father to sublime
heights.  By a stroke of genius Quinney had
challenged the attention of a millionaire collector, who
might entrust so honest a man with commissions
involving tens of thousands of pounds.  His bluff had
been called in Posy's presence, Posy who was staring
at her father with wonder in her eyes.  For one
moment he was tempted to throw prudence to the
winds, and proclaim the fraud.  But—would he be
believed now?

"Is this young man ill?" asked Jordan.

"Oh no," said Quinney.  "He's upset, that's
what he is, and no wonder!  I'll say this for him, he's
a clever lad; and he always had his doubts about
them chairs, didn't you, James?"

"Yes," replied the unhappy James, "but——"

"That'll do, my boy.  Take away that chair.  I
feel ill when I look at it.  Case it up.  We'll send the
lot back to Ireland this afternoon."

James picked up the chair and retreated in disorder,
outplayed at all points.

"The needlework is beautiful," said Jordan.

"Nothing more to be said," remarked Quinney
genially.

He chuckled, rubbing his hands together, glancing
slyly at Posy and Susan.  Jordan was tremendously
impressed.  Here was a little man, obviously without
much education, who had achieved a distinctive
position as a dealer in the world's greatest mart.
And he was plucky enough to face a heavy monetary
loss and a still heavier blow to his *amour propre* as a
connoisseur with—chucklings.  Jordan loved a good
loser.

Hunsaker put into vivid words the thoughts passing
through Jordan's mind:

"Nothing more to be said!" he repeated.  "I've
something to say, and I want to get it off my chest
quick.  You're a dead square man, Mr. Quinney,
and, by thunder, I'll make it my business that
you don't lose by this.  My friends are going
to hear of you, sir.  And some of 'em will weigh
in downstairs with cheques as big as this."  He
waved the slip of paper excitedly.  "I ain't sure
that I ought to take this.  I bought the chairs
after careful examination.  I wanted to buy them,
and you were not over keen about selling.  I
remember that."

"I couldn't let you have those chairs, Mr. Hunsaker.
Tear up that cheque!"

"I'm hanged if I will!  I want to take back to
Hunsaker a souvenir of a great morning.  Can't you
let me have something else for this?"

Then Quinney added the last touch.

"Yes, by Gum!  I can.  And I'll leave it to
Mr. Jordan.  You can have anything in this room you
fancy at a price to be set on it by him."

Hunsaker threw back his broad shoulders and
laughed.  There was a whiff of the New Mexico plains
in his general air, a breezy freshness captivating to
see.  At that moment Quinney regretted nothing.
He beheld an honest man, and was warmed to the core.

"Anything?" repeated Hunsaker.  He glanced
about him, and for one moment his eyes rested upon
Posy.

"Anything," Quinney reaffirmed.

"I'll remember that, sir.  Now, Mr. Jordan, do
me the favour to select some object in this sanctuary
for which you would pay eleven hundred pounds or
more."

"You insist?"

"I shall be under the greatest obligations to you
and Mr. Quinney."

Jordan walked to the cabinet.  At his request
Quinney opened it, displaying the beautiful interior.

"I would gladly give eleven hundred pounds for
this," he said quietly.

"Will you accept that, Mr. Quinney?"

Quinney chuckled, looking at Posy.

"Um!  There are memories connected with that
cabinet, Mr. Hunsaker, which make me willing to
part with it.  It's yours."

"It's mine."

Solemnly he handed the cheque back to Quinney,
who as solemnly received it, laying it upon his desk.
Jordan held out his hand.

"Good-day, Mr. Quinney.  I hope to become one
of your customers, and to send you some of my
friends."

Hunsaker turned to take leave of the ladies.

"I'm fixing up that dinner and play, Miss Posy,
so it won't be good-bye.  *Au revoir*?"

"*Au revoir*," said Posy.



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   \III

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Quinney accompanied them downstairs.  When he
returned to the sanctuary, Tomlin was the first to
greet him.

"Joe," he said, "I've always wondered how a
man without education could win your position in
the trade.  Now I know."

"Honesty pays, Tom, sometimes.  Which reminds
me of that cheque I gave you.  Hand it over,
old man!"

Tomlin did so reluctantly.

"Am I entitled to a com. on the sale of that lac
cabinet?"

"As between man and man you are not, but when
it comes to furnishin' the great and growin' town of
Hunsaker with fancy bits, why you shan't be left out
in the cold."

"So long," said Tomlin.  He saluted the ladies
politely, pausing at the door to address Susan:

"You hang on to Joe, ma'am.  He'll make you
Lady Quinney yet."

Tomlin had heard of the prediction made long ago
by the Queen of the Gipsies.

"Send up James Miggott," said Quinney.

He was left alone with Susan and Posy.  The girl
broke the silence:

"Father!"

"Wait!  James is coming."

The hardness had gone from his voice.  Susan, far
too dazed to realize what had taken place, but
knowing vaguely that her husband seemed to have
triumphed greatly, exclaimed joyously:

"Ah, Joe, you're going to forgive them."

"Forgive—him?  I ain't settled with James yet."

"He was only bluffing," faltered Posy.  "He told
me so."

"Did he?" said her father.

James entered.  He had recovered his self-possession,
and something of his native impudence.
Quinney, it was true, had outwitted him, but the
great fact remained—Posy loved him.

"Stand you there, my lad!"

James remained near the door, thinking of Posy's
three thousand pounds, which, unhappily, could not
be touched till she was twenty-one.  Men have,
however, waited longer for less.

"So you was bluffing—hey?"

"Posy knew that I wouldn't injure you, sir."

"And you thought I was bluffing, but I wasn't.
I'd sooner go to gaol—yes, I would—than see you
married to my daughter.  And why?  Because you're
after things."

"I want Posy."

"I see no margin of profit for Posy if you want her,
and nothing else."

"Posy wants me."

"No, you're wrong, my lad.  Posy wants the man
she thinks you to be, not the man you are."

He approached Posy, looking her over, appraising
her points.

"You ain't a judge of quality yet," he said to her.
"This young feller is a fake.  Don't shake your
pretty head!  He's not good enough for you, and
that's why I forbid the banns.  Your pore mother
thinks it's a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence
with me.  Well, I know the value of money, because
I've made it.  Money can buy nearly everything and
everybody.  Money can buy you, Posy."

"It can't."

"It can buy you from him."

He turned sharply, staring contemptuously at
James, appraising him also as the young man stood
before him, erect and defiant.

"James Miggott——"

"Sir?"

"You have stolen something which is mine.  I'll
buy it back at my own price."

"You can't buy Posy from me?"

"Have you settled yet with Mabel Dredge?"

"What do you mean, sir?"

His voice remained impudently firm, but into his
eyes crept a furtive expression.

"It seems, my lad, that Mabel Dredge wants you,
and you wanted her before Posy came back from
school.  Took all she had to give, too."

"Oh!" exclaimed Posy.

Quinney continued scathingly: "You were mean
enough to break with her, when my girl appeared,
but she didn't break with you.  As a moral
millionaire, James Miggott, you're—bust!"

Susan saw James's face, evidence damning to any
woman of intuitions.  She cried aloud dolorously:

"He stole the roses from her pore cheeks!  Oh, the
everlasting wickedness of some men!"

Quinney smiled derisively.

"And, oh! the everlasting foolishness of some
women!  Mabel Dredge still wants him."

James, floundering in quicksands, attempted to lie
his way out of them.

"It isn't true."

"Pah!" said Quinney.  "You're nicely decorated,
and there's a smooth buttery glaze to you, but your
paste is rotten!  Now, let's get to business.  Posy and
her mother think that I value things more than
persons.  Here"—he snatched up Hunsaker's cheque—"is
a *thing* worth eleven hundred pounds.  I offer
you this, James Miggott, and with it Mabel Dredge,
who prefers flashy stuff.  You must choose, and
choose quick, between Mabel, *plus* this cheque, and
Posy in her go-to-meetin' clothes, *plus* her mother,
who's right, by Gum, not to trust her alone with you."

Personality can be irresistible.  This little man,
with all his disabilities, held these three persons
spellbound under the magic of his voice and manner.
Posy's bosom was heaving with emotion; Susan
stared, open-eyed and open-mouthed, at the lover
of Laburnum Row, her Joe, miraculously restored to
her.  James glared at his master, recognizing him as
such, defiant still, but stricken dumb.  Quinney
chuckled.

"The cheque won't be on offer long, my lad.
Better take it!  Better take it!  It's—endorsed."

James hesitated, casting a furtive glance at Posy.
She met his eyes bravely; and he knew that she saw
him unmistakably as he was.  Quinney flipped the
cheque with his finger.

"Better take it—quick!"

James took it, and fled.



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   \IV

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Posy fell weeping into a chair.  It is significant,
perhaps, that Susan for the moment disregarded her
daughter.  Joe seemed to fill her eyes and the room.
She fluttered towards him, stretching out her hands,
calling him by name.

"You are—wonderful!"

The old phrase fell inevitably from her lips.  He
was acclaimed as the senior partner, rehabilitated.
She did not entreat forgiveness, because she divined
proudly that he would not wish his wife to humble
herself.

Quinney kissed her joyously.

But Posy's bitter sobbing spoilt the sweetness of
that kiss.  Husband and wife remembered guiltily
their child.

"Come you here, Posy," said Quinney.  "Come
to your old dad, my pretty!"

She obeyed him, hiding her head upon his shoulder,
feeling the pressure of his arms, and then hearing his
voice:

"I've paid more for you, Posy, than any thing I've
got.  And I shall hold tight on to you till Mr. Right
comes along.  You'll know him when you see him,
missy, because of this nasty little experience with
Mr. Wrong."

He stroked her hair, caressed her cheek, touching
her lovingly with the tips of his fingers.  Posy looked
up.

"You do love me, don't you?"

"By God," he answered, "I do."

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center small

GARDEN CITY PRESS LTD., LETCHWORTH, ENGLAND.

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center large bold

   MURRAY'S 1/- NOVELS.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

LADDIE - - - By Gene Stratton-Porter
MR. WYCHERLY'S WARDS - - - L. Allen Harker
TOWER OF IVORY - - - Gertrude Atherton
LOOT - - - Horace A. Vachell
NOTWITHSTANDING - - - Mary Cholmondeley
QUINNEYS' - - - Horace A. Vachell
FRECKLES - - - Gene Stratton-Porter
SEPTIMUS - - - William J. Locke
FLEMINGTON - - - Violet Jacob
AN IMPENDING SWORD - - - Horace A. Vachell
THE COMPLEAT BACHELOR - - - Oliver Onions
THE FLORENTINE FRAME - - - Elizabeth Robins
MISS ESPERANCE & MR. WYCHERLY - - - L. Allen Harker

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.. pgfooter::