Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/297

 "Now, Blake, this is from the grateful wretch whose life you have not only saved but enriched. Well, there's an excellent lot of stuff there. I've got the pick, from a collector's standpoint—though not from a money valuation. I can't tell what it will bring, but enough to put our youngish old friend easy for some time to come. You box it up, as much as she wants to let go, and send it to the Empire Auction Rooms—here's the card. They're plain auction-room people, you understand,—wouldn't hesitate to rob you in a genteel, auction way,—but I'll be there and see that they don't. Some of those other pieces I may want, but I'll take a bidding chance on them like a man, and I'll watch the whole thing through and see that it's straight."

Billy Durgin told me that Cohen and James Walsingham Price left on the night train going East. Billy noticed that Cohen seemed morose, and heard him exclaim something that sounded like "Goniff! " under his breath, as Price turned away from him after a brief chat.

For Little Arcady the appalling wonder was still to dawn. Load after load of the despised furniture went into freight-cars, until the home of Miss Caroline was only comfortably furnished. This was sensational enough—that the things should be thought worth shipping about the country with freights so high.

But after a few weeks came tales that atrophied belief—tales corroborated by a printed catalogue and