Page:The Gentle Grafter (1908).djvu/145

 “All the next morning Andy was out. I didn’t see him until about noon. He came to the hotel and called me into his room across the hall. He pulled a roundish bundle about as big as a goose egg out of his pocket and unwrapped it. It was an ivory carving just as he had described the millionaire’s to me.

“‘I went in an old second hand store and pawnshop a while ago,’ says Andy, ‘and I see this half hidden under a lot of old daggers and truck. The pawnbroker said he’d had it several years and thinks it was soaked by some Arabs or Turks or some foreign dubs that used to live down by the river.

“‘I offered him $2 for it, and I must have looked like I wanted it, for he said it would be taking the pumpernickel out of his children’s mouths to hold any conversation that did not lead up to a price of $35. I finally got it for $25.

“‘Jeff,’ goes on Andy, ‘this is the exact counterpart of Scudder’s carving. It’s absolutely a dead ringer for it. He’ll pay $2,000 for it as quick as he’d tuck a napkin under his chin. And why shouldn’t it be the genuine other one, anyhow, that the old gypsy whittled out?’

“‘Why not, indeed?’ says I. ‘And how shall we go about compelling him to make a voluntary purchase of it?’ 133