a far city,--those two atoms
shaken into contact while the gods affected to be engaged with weightier
matters,--the cultured widow of that derelict recalled the name of a
gentleman in the East who was accustomed to buy tall clocks and
fiddle-backed chairs, in her native New England, paying prices therefor
to make one, in that conservative locality, rich beyond the dreams of
avarice, almost.

Such was the cleverly devised circumstance that now intervened between
my neighbor and an indigence distressing to think about. It was as if,
in the game, a red four which one had neglected to "play up" should
actually permit victory after an intricate series of disasters, by
providing a temporary resting-place for a black trey, otherwise fatally
obstructive, causing the player to marvel afresh at that last fateful
but apparently chance shuffle.

A week after Mrs. Potts had written, the gentleman who received her
letter registered as "Hyman Cohen, New York, N.Y.," at the City Hotel.
From his manner of speech when he inquired for the Lansdale home it was
seen that he seemed to be a German.

When Miss Caroline received him a little later, he asked abruptly about
furniture, and she, in some astonishment, showed him what she had, even
to that crowded into dark rooms and out of use.

He examined it carelessly and remarked that it was the worst lot that he
had ever seen.

This did not surprise Miss Caroline in the least, though she thought the
gentleman's candor exceptional. Little Arcady's opinion, which she knew
to tally with his, had always come to her more circuitously.

The strange gentleman then asked Miss Caroline, not too urbanely, if she
had expected him to come all the way from New York to look at such cheap
stuff. Miss Caroline assured him quite honestly that she had expected
nothing of the sort, and intimated that her regret for his coming
surpassed his own, even if it must remain more obscurely worded. She
indicated that the interview was at an end.

The strange gentleman arose also, but as Clem was about to close the
door after him, he offered Miss Caroline one hundred and fifty dollars
for "the lot," observing again that it was worthless stuff, but that in
"this business" a man had to take chances. Miss Caroline declined to
notice this, having found that there was something in the gentleman's
manner which she did not like, and he went down the path revealing
annoyance in the shrug of his shoulders and the sidewise