LITMIR.BIZ

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Planchet's prices, no wonder Sally had plunged. …

      I took out a pencil and picked up a pad of notepaper.

      "And the other rugs?" I inquired.

      "The same price, Monsieur."

      The rugs went down.

      Slowly, and without a shadow of argument, the prices of the other valuables were asked, received, and entered.

      With a shaking hand I counted up the figures—eight thousand six hundred francs.

      I passed the paper to Berry.

      "Will you pay him?" I said. "I haven't got enough at the bank here, and you can't expect him to take a foreign cheque."

      "Right oh!"

      "He may not want to part with them all at one house," said Daphne.

       "You'd better ask him."

      Adèle smiled very charmingly.

      "We like your pretty things very much," she said. "May we have what you've shown us?"

      Planchet inclined his head.

      "As Madame pleases."

      I crossed to where he was standing and went through my list, identifying each article as I came to it, and making him confirm the price. When we had finished, I insisted upon him checking my figures. He did so with some show of reluctance. The total, seemingly, was good enough.

      When the reckoning was over, I hesitated.

      Then—

      "You know," I said slowly, "we'd have to pay much more than this in the shops."

      It seemed only fair.

      Planchet spread out his hands.

      "Monsieur is very kind: but for me, I should not obtain more from the merchants. I know them. They are robbers. I prefer infinitely to deal with you."

      "All right. You don't mind a cheque?"

      "A cheque, Monsieur?"

      "Yes, on the bank here. We haven't so much money in the house."

      The little man hesitated. Nervously the big brown eyes turned from me to fall upon his possessions. …

      "That's all right," said Berry. "The bank's still open. Fitch can run up in the car and get the money. He's probably had a dud cheque some time or other. Anyway, considering he knows nothing of us, and Sally's out of reach, I don't blame him."

      Such a way out of the difficulty was unanimously approved, and when I communicated our intention to Planchet, the latter seemed greatly relieved. It was not, he explained volubly, that he did not trust us, but when a poor sailor produced such a cheque to a bank. …

      As Berry left to give the chauffeur his instructions—

      "Last time you came," said Daphne, "you brought a beautiful shawl.

       Mrs. Featherstone bought it."

      Planchet frowned thoughtfully. Then his face lighted with recollection.

      "Perfectly, Madame. I remember it. It was very fine. I have another like it at home."

      My sister caught her breath.

      "For sale?"

      "If Madame pleases." Adèle and Jill clasped one another. "I will bring it to-morrow."

      With an obvious effort Daphne controlled her excitement.

      "I—we should like to have a look at it," she said.

      Planchet inclined his head.

      "To-morrow morning, Madame."

      Without more ado he packed up his traps, announced that, as he was returning on the morrow, there was now no occasion for him to wait for his money, and, thanking us profusely for our patronage and assuring us that he was ever at our service, summoned his employee and withdrew humbly enough.

      It was fully a quarter of an hour before the first wave of our pent-up enthusiasm had spent itself. After a positive debauch of self-congratulation, amicable bickering with regard to the precise order of precedence in which an antiquary would place our acquisitions, and breathless speculation concerning their true worth, we sank into sitting postures about the room and smiled affectionately upon one another.

      "And now," said Berry, "what about tying them up?"

      "What for?" said Jill.

      "Well, you can't send them through the post as they are."

      "You don't imagine," said Daphne, in the horrified tone of one who repeats a blasphemy, "you don't imagine that we're going to give these things away?"

      Berry looked round wildly.

      "D'you mean to say you're going to keep them?" he cried.

      "Of course we are," said his wife.

      "What, all of them?"

      My sister nodded.

      "Every single one," she said.

      With an unearthly shriek, Berry lay back in his chair and drummed with his heels upon the floor.

      "I can't bear it!" he roared. "I can't bear it! I won't. It's insufferable. I've parted with the savings of a lifetime for a whole roomful of luxuries, not one of which, in the ordinary way, we should have dreamed of purchasing, not one of which we require, to not one of which, had you seen it in a shop, you would have given a second thought, all of which are probably spurious——"

      "Shame!" cried Jill.

      "——only to be told that I've still got to prosecute the mutually revolting acquaintance with infuriated shopkeepers forced upon me this morning. It's cruelty to animals, and I shall write to the Y.M.C.A. Besides, it's more blessed——"

      "I can't help it," said Daphne. "The man had absolutely nothing that would have done for anybody. If——"

      "One second," said her husband. "I haven't parsed that sentence yet.

       And what d'you mean by 'done for'? Because——"

      "If," Daphne continued doggedly, "we sent one of those rugs to someone for Christmas, they'd think we'd gone mad."

      Berry sighed.

      "I'm not sure we haven't," he said. "Any way—" he nodded at Jonah and myself—"I'll trouble each of you gents for a cheque for sixty pounds. As it is, I shall have to give up paying my tailor again, and what with Lent coming on … " Wearily he rose to his feet. "And now I'm going to have a good healthy cry. Globules the size of pigeons' eggs will well from my orbs."

      "I know," said Jill. "These things can be our Christmas presents to one another."

      Berry laughed hysterically.

      "What a charming idea!" he said brokenly. "And how generous! I shall always treasure it. Every time I look at my pass-book … "

      Overcome with emotion he stepped out of the room.

      A muffled bark reminded me that Nobby was still imprisoned, and I rose to follow my brother-in-law.

      As I was closing the door, I heard my wife's voice.

      "You know, I'm simply pining to see that shawl."

      * * * * *

      At ten o'clock the next morning the most beautiful piece of embroidery I have ever seen passed into our possession in return for the ridiculously inadequate sum of two thousand francs.

      Obviously very old, the pale yellow silk of which the shawl was made was literally strewn with blossoms, each tender one of them a work of art. All the matchless cunning, all the unspeakable patience, all the inscrutable spirit of China blinked and smiled at you out of those wonderful flowers. There

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