pet.

You never saw the rug except in this salon. Cleigh dared not hang it in
his gallery at home in New York for the particular reason that the British
Government, urged by the Viceroy of India, had been hunting high and low
for the rug since 1911, when it had been the rightful property of a
certain influential maharaja whose _Ai, ai!_ had reverberated from Hind to
Albion over the loss. Thus it will not be difficult to understand why
Cleigh was lonely rather than lonesome.

Queer lot. To be a true collector is to be as the opium eater: you keep
getting in deeper and deeper, careless that the way back closes. After a
while you cannot feel any kick in the stuff you find in the open marts, so
you step outside the pale, where they sell the unadulterated. That's the
true, dyed-in-the-wool collector. He no longer acquires a Vandyke merely
to show to his friends; that he possesses it for his own delectation is
enough. He becomes brother to Gaspard, miser; and like Gaspard he cannot
be fooled by spurious gold.

Over the top of the rug was a curtain of waxed sailcloth that could be
dropped by the pull of a cord, and it was generally dropped whenever
Cleigh made port.

It was vaguely known that Cleigh possessed the maharaja's treasure.
Millionaire collectors, agents, and famous salesroom auctioneers had heard
indirectly; but they kept the information to themselves--not from any
kindly spirit, however. Never a one of them but hoped some day he might
lay hands upon the rug and dispose of it to some other madman. A rug
valued at seventy thousand dollars was worth a high adventure. Cleigh,
however, with cynical humour courted the danger.

There is a race of hardy dare-devils--super-thieves--of which the world
hears little and knows little. These adventurers have actually robbed the
Louvre, the Vatican, the Pitti Gallery, the palaces of kings and sultans.
It was not so long ago that La Gioconda--Mona Lisa--was stolen from the
Louvre. Cleigh had come from New York, thousands of miles, for the express
purpose of meeting one of these amazing rogues--a rogue who, had he found
a rich wallet on the pavements, would have moved heaven and earth to find
the owner, but who would have stolen the Pope's throne had it been left
about carelessly.

It is rather difficult to analyze the moral status of such a man, or that
of the man ready to deal with him.

Cleigh lowered his book and assumed a listening attitude. Above the patter
of the rai