can use my hands, my finger-tips, my tongue, lips, my commonplace nose, and they don’t lead me astray as your credulous, self-opinionated eyes seem to have done—if you really take this thing for a genuine antique,’ and with uncanny proficiency he tossed the coin back into the box before him.
‘You can’t see—you say that you are blind—and yet you tell me, an expert, that it’s a forgery!’
‘It certainly is a forgery, but an exceptionally good one at that—so good that no one but Pietro Stelli, who lives in Padua, could in these degenerate days have made it. Pietro makes such beautiful forgeries that in my less experienced years they have taken even me in. Of course I couldn’t have that so I went to Padua to find out how he worked, and Peter, who is, according to his lights, as simple and honest a soul as ever breathed, willingly let me watch him at it.’
‘And how,’ demanded Mr Joolby, seeming almost to puff out aggression towards this imperturbable braggart; ‘how could you see him what you call “at it”, if, as you say, you are blind? You are just a little too clever, Mr Carrados.’
‘How could I see? Exactly as I can see’—stretching out his hand and manipulating the extraordinarily perceptive fingers meaningly—‘any of the ingenious fakes which sharp people offer the blind man; exactly as I could see any of the thousand and one things that you have about your shop. This’—handling it as he seemed to look tranquilly at Mr Joolby—‘this imitation Persian prayer-rug with its lattice-work design and pomegranate scroll, for instance; exactly as I could, if it were necessary, see you,’ and he took a step forward as though to carry out the word, if Mr Joolby hadn’t hastily fallen back at the prospect.
The prayer-rug was no news to Mr Joolby—although it was ticketed five guineas—but he had had complete faith in the tetradrachm notwithstanding that he had bought it at the price of silver; and despite the fact that he would still continue to describe it as a matchless gem it was annoying to have it so unequivocally doubted. He picked up the box without offering any more of its contents, and hobbling back to the desk with it slammed the drawer home in swelling mortification.
‘Well, if that is your way of judging a valuable antique, Mr Carrados, I don’t think that we shall do any business. I have nothing more to show, thank you.’
‘It is my way of judging everything—men included—Mr Joolby, and it never, never fails,’ replied Carrados, not in the least put out by the dealer’s brusqueness. It was a frequent grievance with certain of this rich and influential man’s friends that he never appeared to resent a rudeness. ‘And why should I,’ the blind man would cheerfully reply, ‘when I have the excellent excuse that I do not see it?’
‘Of course I don’t mean by touch alone,’ he continued, apparently unconscious of the fact that Mr Joolby’s indignant back was now pointedly towards him. ‘Taste, when it’s properly treated, becomes strangely communicative; smell’—there could be no doubt of the significance of this allusion from the direction of the speaker’s nose—‘the chief trouble is that at times smell becomes too communicative. And hearing—I daren’t even tell you what a super-trained ear sometimes learns of the goings-on behind the scenes—but a blind man seldom misses a whisper and he never forgets a voice.’
Apparently Mr Joolby was not interested in the subtleties of perception for he still remained markedly aloof, and yet, had he but known it, an exacting test of the boast so confidently made was even then in process, and one moreover surprisingly mixed up with his own plans. For at that moment, as the visitor turned to go, the inner door was opened a cautious couple of inches and:
‘Look here, J.J.,’ said the unseen in a certainly distinctive voice, ‘I hope you know that I’m waiting to go. If you’re likely to be another week—’
‘Don’t neglect your friend on our account, Mr Joolby,’ remarked Carrados very pleasantly—for Won Chou had at once slipped to the unlatched door as if to head off the intruder. ‘I quite agree. I don’t think that we are likely to do any business either. Good day.’
‘Dog dung!’ softly spat out Mr Joolby as the shop door closed on their departing footsteps.
MR BRONSKY HAS MISGIVINGS
AS Mr Carrados and Parkinson left the shop they startled a little group of street children who after the habit of their kind were whispering together, giggling, pushing one another about, screaming mysterious taunts, comparing sores and amusing themselves in the unaccountable but perfectly satisfactory manner of street childhood. Reassured by the harmless appearance of the two intruders the impulse of panic at once passed and a couple of the most precocious little girls went even so far as to smile up at the strangers. More remarkable still, although Parkinson felt constrained by his imperviable dignity to look away, Mr Carrados unerringly returned the innocent greeting.
This incident entailed a break in which the appearance of the visitors, their position in life, place of residence, object in coming and the probable amount of money possessed by each were frankly canvassed, but when that source of entertainment failed the band fell back on what had been their stock game at the moment of interruption. This apparently consisted in daring one another to do various things and in backing out of the contest when the challenge was reciprocated. At last, however, one small maiden, spurred to desperation by repeated ‘dares’, after imploring the others to watch her do it, crept up the step of Mr Joolby’s shop, cautiously pushed open the door and standing well inside (the essence of the test as laid down), chanted in the peculiarly irritating sing-song of her tribe:
‘Toady, toady Jewlicks;
Crawls about on two sticks.
Toady, toady—’
‘Makee go away,’ called out Won Chou from his post, and this not being at once effective he advanced towards the door with a mildly threatening gesture. ‘Makee go much quickly, littee cow-child. Shall do if not gone is.’
The young imp had been prepared for immediate flight the instant anyone appeared, but for some reason Won Chou’s not very aggressive behest must have conveyed a peculiarly galling insult for its effect was to transform the wary gamin into a bristling little spitfire, who hurled back the accumulated scandal of the quarter.
‘’Ere, don’t you call me a cow-child, you ’eathen swine,’ she shrilled, standing her ground pugnaciously. ‘Pig-tail!’ And as Won Chou, conscious of his disadvantage in such an encounter, advanced: ‘Oo made the puppy pie? Oo et Jimmy ’Iggs’s white mice? Oo lives on black beetles? Oo pinched the yaller duck and—’ but at this intriguing point, being suddenly precipitated further into the shop by a mischievous child behind, and honour being fully satisfied by now, she dodged out again and rejoined the fleeing band which was retiring down the street to a noisy accompaniment of feigned alarm, squiggles of meaningless laughter, and the diminishing chant of:
‘Toady, toady Jewlicks;
Goes abaht on two sticks.
Toady, toady—’
Sadly conscious of the inadequacy of his control in a land where for so slight a matter as a clouted child an indignant mother would as soon pull his pig-tail out as look, Won Chou continued his progress in order to close the door. There, however, he came face to face with a stout, consequential gentleman whose presence, opulent
