Page:The Van Roon (IA thevanroon00snaiiala).pdf/23



S Gedge Antiques, feather duster in hand, began to flick pensively a number of articles of bigotry and virtue. The occupation amused him. It was not that he had any great regard for the things he sold, but each was registered in his mind as having been bought for so much at So-and-So's sale. A thoroughly competent man he understood his trade. He had first set up in business in the year 1879. That was a long time ago, but it was his proud boast that he had yet to make his first serious mistake. Like everyone else, he had made mistakes, but it pleased him to think that he had never been badly "let in." His simple rule was not to pay a high price for anything. Sometimes he missed a bargain by not taking chances, but banking on certainties brought peace of mind and a steady growth of capital.

Perhaps the worst shot he had ever made was the queer article to which he now applied the duster. A huge black jar, about six feet high and so fantastically hideous in design as to suggest the familiar of a Caribbean witch doctor or the joss of a barbarous king, held a position of sufficient prominence on the shop floor for his folly to be ever before him. Years ago he had taken this grinning, wide-mouthed monster, shaped and featured like Moloch, in exchange for a bad debt, hoping that in the course of time he would be able to trade it away. As yet he had not succeeded. Few people apparently had a use for such an evil-looking thing which took up so much house room. S. Gedge An