y, meanwhile, the
lust of the eye was claiming him, and he was becoming surcharged with a
single great passion.

His ascent through books, prints, Colonial furniture, miniatures, rugs,
and European porcelain to the dizzy heights of Chinese porcelain and
Japanese pottery and painting, it would be tedious and unprofitable to
follow. It is enough to say that all along the course his dull grey eye
emphatically proved itself the one thing not mediocre about him. It
grasped the quality of a fine thing unerringly; it sensed a stray good
porcelain from the back row of the auction room. How he knew without
knowing why was a mystery to his fellows and even to himself. For if he
frequented the museums of New York, and had made one memorable pilgrimage
to the Oriental collections of Boston, he was quite without travel, and
his education had been chiefly that of the shops and salesrooms. Thus his
finds represented less knowledge than an active faith which served as
well. A Gubbio lustre jug of museum rank had been bought before he knew
the definition of majolica. Before he had learned the peril of such a
hazard he had fearlessly rescued a real Kirman mat from an omnibus sale.
His scraps of old Chinese bronze and stoneware represented the promptings
of a demon who had yet to discover the difference between Sung and
Yungching.

These achievements gave John Baxter a certain notoriety in his world and
the unusual luxury of self esteem. What brought him the scorn of blunter
associates, who openly derided him as a crank, assured him a certain
deference from the _cognoscenti_. The small dealers respected him as an
authority; the auctioneers greeted him by name as he slipped into his
chair, and appealed to him personally when a fine lot hung shamefully. He
had the entree at two or three of the more discerning among the great
dealers, who occasionally asked his opinion or gave him a bargain. In
short a really impressive John as he sees himself was growing up within
the skin of poor John Baxter, feeble scribbler for the weak-kneed
religious press. As he looked about his cluttered room of an evening he
could whisper proudly, "No, it's not a collection, but I can wait. And
there is meanwhile nothing in this room that is not good, very good of
its type." Sometimes in more expansive musings he would take out of its
brocaded bag a wooden tobacco box artfully incrusted with lacquer,
pewter, and mother of pearl, the work of the great Korin, and wou