Abington." He
used to talk like that, without commas or question marks. Later, he got better,
but then, it was all one big sentence.

"Call me Jerry. It's a date, then. Tell you what, though: there's a Code you got
to learn before we go out. The Craphound's Code."

"What is a craphound?"

"You're lookin' at one. You're one, too, unless I miss my guess. You'll get to
know some of the local craphounds, you hang around with me long enough. They're
the competition, but they're also your buddies, and there're certain rules we
have."

And then I explained to him all about how you never bid against a craphound at a
yard-sale, how you get to know the other fellows' tastes, and when you see
something they might like, you haul it out for them, and they'll do the same for
you, and how you never buy something that another craphound might be looking
for, if all you're buying it for is to sell it back to him. Just good form and
common sense, really, but you'd be surprised how many amateurs just fail to make
the jump to pro because they can't grasp it.

#

There was a bunch of other stuff at the auction, other craphounds' weekend
treasures. This was high season, when the sun comes out and people start to
clean out the cottage, the basement, the garage. There were some collectors in
the crowd, and a whole whack of antique and junk dealers, and a few pickers, and
me, and Craphound. I watched the bidding listlessly, waiting for my things to
come up and sneaking out for smokes between lots. Craphound never once looked at
me or acknowledged my presence, and I became perversely obsessed with catching
his eye, so I coughed and shifted and walked past him several times, until the
auctioneer glared at me, and one of the attendants asked if I needed a throat
lozenge.

My lot came up. The bowling glasses went for five bucks to one of the Queen
Street junk dealers; the elephant-foot fetched $350 after a spirited bidding war
between an antique dealer and a collector -- the collector won; the dealer took
the top-hat for $100. The rest of it came up and sold, or didn't, and at end of
the lot, I'd made over $800, which was rent for the month plus beer for the
weekend plus gas for the truck.

Craphound bid on and bought more cowboy things -- a box of super-eight cowboy
movies, the boxes mouldy, the stock itself running to slime; a Navajo blanket; a
plastic donkey that dispensed cigarettes out of its ass; a big neon armadillo
sign.

One of t