Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/293

 story almost as good. Reproductions, every piece of it, with as fine an imitation of worm-eaten backs as you could ever wish to see."

I had never wished to see any worm-eaten backs whatever, but I sought to betray regret that I had not encountered this surpassing lot of them.

"Of course," he continued, "you will understand that I am speaking now as a hardened collector, whose life is beset with pitfalls and with gins—not as a starved wretch to the saver of his life."

"You shall see the stuff," I said.

"Oh, by all means, and the quicker the better. Cohen is waiting at the hotel for me now—at the foot of the front stairway, and he may suspect any minute that I was mean enough to slink down the back stairs and out through an alley. In fact, I'm rather excited at the prospect of seeing that furniture—Cohen condemned it so bitterly."

"He sent an offer of six hundred dollars for it last night," I said. Hereupon my guest became truly excited.

"He did—six hundred—Cohen did? I don't wish to be rude, old chap, but would you mind hastening? That is more eloquent than all your story."

For half an hour, notwithstanding his eagerness, Mr. James Walsingham Price succumbed to the manner of Miss Caroline. Noting the lack of compunction with which she played upon him before my very eyes, I divined that the late Colonel Lansdale had