hioned farce. After
a courteous exchange of greetings, Archie sat down and lit a cigarette.
Parker went on dusting.

"The guv'nor," said Parker, breaking the silence, "has some nice little
objay dar, sir."

"Little what?"

"Objay dar, sir."

Light dawned upon Archie.

"Of course, yes. French for junk. I see what you mean now. Dare say
you're right, old friend. Don't know much about these things myself."

Parker gave an appreciative flick at a vase on the mantelpiece.

"Very valuable, some of the guv'nor's things." He had picked up the
small china figure of the warrior with the spear, and was grooming it
with the ostentatious care of one brushing flies off a sleeping Venus.
He regarded this figure with a look of affectionate esteem which
seemed to Archie absolutely uncalled-for. Archie's taste in Art was not
precious. To his untutored eye the thing was only one degree less foul
than his father-in-law's Japanese prints, which he had always observed
with silent loathing. "This one, now," continued Parker. "Worth a lot of
money. Oh, a lot of money."

"What, Pongo?" said Archie incredulously.

"Sir?"

"I always call that rummy-looking what-not Pongo. Don't know what else
you could call him, what!"

The valet seemed to disapprove of this levity. He shook his head and
replaced the figure on the mantelpiece.

"Worth a lot of money," he repeated. "Not by itself, no."

"Oh, not by itself?"

"No, sir. Things like this come in pairs. Somewhere or other there's the
companion-piece to this here, and if the guv'nor could get hold of it,
he'd have something worth having. Something that connoozers would give a
lot of money for. But one's no good without the other. You have to have
both, if you understand my meaning, sir."

"I see. Like filling a straight flush, what?"

"Precisely, sir."

Archie gazed at Pongo again, with the dim hope of discovering virtues
not immediately apparent to the casual observer. But without success.
Pongo left him cold--even chilly. He would not have taken Pongo as a
gift, to oblige a dying friend.

"How much would the pair be worth?" he asked. "Ten dollars?"

Parker smiled a gravely superior smile. "A leetle more than that, sir.
Several thousand dollars, more like it."

"Do you mean to say," said Archie, with honest amazement, "that there
are chumps going about loose--absolutely loose--who would pay that for a
weird little object like Pongo?"

"Undoubtedly, sir. These antique china