friend became truly
human.

"Now, Blake, this is from the grateful wretch whose life you have not
only saved but enriched. Well, there's an excellent lot of stuff there.
I've got the pick, from a collector's standpoint--though not from a
money valuation. I can't tell what it will bring, but enough to put our
youngish old friend easy for some time to come. You box it up, as much
as she wants to let go, and send it to the Empire Auction Rooms--here's
the card. They're plain auction-room people, you understand,--wouldn't
hesitate to rob you in a genteel, auction way,--but I'll be there and
see that they don't. Some of those other pieces I may want, but I'll
take a bidding chance on them like a man, and I'll watch the whole thing
through and see that it's straight."

Billy Durgin told me that Cohen and James Walsingham Price left on the
night train going East. Billy noticed that Cohen seemed morose, and
heard him exclaim something that sounded like "Goniff!" under his
breath, as Price turned away from him after a brief chat.

For Little Arcady the appalling wonder was still to dawn. Load after
load of the despised furniture went into freight-cars, until the home of
Miss Caroline was only comfortably furnished. This was sensational
enough--that the things should be thought worth shipping about the
country with freights so high.

But after a few weeks came tales that atrophied belief--tales
corroborated by a printed catalogue and by certain deposits of money in
our bank to the account of Miss Caroline. That six wretched chairs,
plain to ugliness, had sold for three hundred dollars spread
consternation. The plain old sideboard for a hundred and ten dollars
only fed the flames. But there had been sold what the catalogue
described as "A Colonial sofa with carved dolphin arms, winged claw
feet, and carved back" for two hundred and ten dollars, and after that
the emotions aroused in Little Arcady were difficult to classify. Upon
that very sofa most of the ladies of Little Arcady had sat to pity Miss
Caroline for being "lumbered" with it. Again, a "Colonial highboy,
hooded," recalled as an especially awkward thing, and "five mahogany
side chairs" had gone for three hundred and eighty dollars. A
"Heppelwhite mahogany armchair," remembered for its faded red satin, had
veritably brought one hundred and sixty dollars; and a carved rosewood
screen, said to be of Empire design, but a shabby thing, had sold
astonishingly for ninety d