d not be lost.

"I say it reminds me of cocoanuts." He screamed it this time.

"Oh, does it?" was the reply.

"Doesn't it you?"

"Can't say it does," answered Teidelmann. "As a matter of fact, don't
know much about it myself. Never use it."

Old Teidelmann went on with his dinner, but Hasluck was still full of
the subject.

"Take my advice," he shouted, "and buy a bottle."

"Buy a what?"

"A bottle," roared the other, with an effort palpably beyond his
strength.

"What's he say? What's he talking about now?" asked Teidelmann, again
appealing to my mother.

"He says you ought to buy a bottle," again explained my mother.

"What of?"

"Of your own disinfectant."

"Silly fool!"

Whether he intended the remark to be heard and thus to close the topic
(which it did), or whether, as deaf people are apt to, merely misjudged
the audibility of an intended sotto vocalism, I cannot say. I only know
that outside in the passage I heard the words distinctly, and therefore
assume they reached round the table also.

A lull in the conversation followed, but Hasluck was not thin-skinned,
and the next thing I distinguished was his cheery laugh.

"He's quite right," was Hasluck's comment; "that's what I am
undoubtedly. Because I can't talk about anything but shop myself, I
think everybody else is the same sort of fool."

But he was doing himself an injustice, for on my next arrival in the
passage he was again shouting across the table, and this time Teidelmann
was evidently interested.

"Well, if you could spare the time, I'd be more obliged than I can tell
you," Hasluck was saying. "I know absolutely nothing about pictures
myself, and Pearsall says you are one of the best judges in Europe."

"He ought to know," chuckled old Teidelmann. "He's tried often enough to
palm off rubbish onto me."

"That last purchase of yours must have been a good thing for young--"
Hasluck mentioned the name of a painter since world famous; "been the
making of him, I should say."

"I gave him two thousand for the six," replied Teidelmann, "and they'll
sell for twenty thousand."

"But you'll never sell them?" exclaimed my father.

"No," grunted old Teidelmann, "but my widow will." There came a soft,
low laugh from a corner of the table I could not see.

"It's Anderson's great disappointment," followed a languid, caressing
voice (the musical laugh translated into prose, it seemed), "that he has
never been able to educate me to a pro