Page:The Specimen Case.djvu/75

66 "Curiously enough, one does not seem to have been left, and I"

"Well, it's none of ours, for I have your order down for next week. Thursday morning, early. You have probably been imposed on by someone."

"I don't quite see how that can be. The man—a little, cheerful fellow, who made nothing of the stairs"

"Not one of our men," said the manager decisively. "Good-day."

Mr. Brown left the office and tried the next most likely place, and then the next. But nowhere was he successful. No sooner did he essay to describe his obliging visitor than he was cut short by the positive assurance that there was no such man in their employ.

At last only one office remained—the least promising. He went on to it only as a matter of form, and began the now familiar tale:

"Some coal was delivered"

"Yes?" prompted the young man in attendance, for the words had been cut off by a gasp.

"That you have a picture over there," stammered Mr. Brown in a shaking voice, and pointing. "Might I look at it?"

"Certainly," assented the clerk agreeably. "Rum old thing, isn't it?" And he lifted the counter-flap for Mr. Brown to pass within.

It was a print of a stout, little, pleasant-faced man in a blue smock-frock, displaying in his hand a coal-measure, as though to assert that he was by no means ashamed of his calling. Beneath were the words: "Thomas Britton ( 1654-1714). The Musical Coal Man. From the painting in the National Portrait Gallery."

"Governor brought it round one day and stuck it up