With a careless flourish we had called the tune--clamoured for it....

If the piper's fee was exorbitant, we had only ourselves to thank.

Planchet hesitated. Then--

"Five hundred francs, _Madame_."

Ten pounds.

You could have heard a pin drop.

The rug was worth sixty. In Regent Street or Fifth Avenue we should have been asked a hundred. If this was typical of Planchet's prices, no wonder Sally had plunged....

I took out a pencil and picked up a pad of notepaper.

"And the other rugs?" I inquired.

"The same price, _Monsieur_."

The rugs went down.

Slowly, and without a shadow of argument, the prices of the other valuables were asked, received, and entered.

With a shaking hand I counted up the figures--eight thousand six hundred francs.

I pa.s.sed the paper to Berry.

"Will you pay him?" I said. "I haven't got enough at the bank here, and you can't expect him to take a foreign cheque."

"Right oh!"

"He may not want to part with them all at one house," said Daphne.

"You'd better ask him."

Adele smiled very charmingly.

"We like your pretty things very much," she said. "May we have what you've shown us?"

Planchet inclined his head.

"As _Madame_ pleases."

I crossed to where he was standing and went through my list, identifying each article as I came to it, and making him confirm the price. When we had finished, I insisted upon him checking my figures.

He did so with some show of reluctance. The total, seemingly, was good enough.

When the reckoning was over, I hesitated.

Then--

"You know," I said slowly, "we'd have to pay much more than this in the shops."

It seemed only fair.

Planchet spread out his hands.

"_Monsieur_ is very kind: but for me, I should not obtain more from the merchants. I know them. They are robbers. I prefer infinitely to deal with you."

"All right. You don't mind a cheque?"

"A cheque, _Monsieur_?"

"Yes, on the bank here. We haven't so much money in the house."

The little man hesitated. Nervously the big brown eyes turned from me to fall upon his possessions....

"That's all right," said Berry. "The bank's still open. Fitch can run up in the car and get the money. He's probably had a dud cheque some time or other. Anyway, considering he knows nothing of us, and Sally's out of reach, I don't blame him."

Such a way out of the difficulty was unanimously approved, and when I communicated our intention to Planchet, the latter seemed greatly relieved. It was not, he explained volubly, that he did not trust us, but when a poor sailor produced such a cheque to a bank....

As Berry left to give the chauffeur his instructions--

"Last time you came," said Daphne, "you brought a beautiful shawl.

Mrs. Featherstone bought it."

Planchet frowned thoughtfully. Then his face lighted with recollection.

"Perfectly, _Madame_. I remember it. It was very fine. I have another like it at home."

My sister caught her breath.

"For sale?"

"If _Madame pleases_." Adele and Jill clasped one another. "I will bring it to-morrow."

With an obvious effort Daphne controlled her excitement.

"I--we should like to have a look at it," she said.

Planchet inclined his head.

"To-morrow morning, _Madame_."

Without more ado he packed up his traps, announced that, as he was returning on the morrow, there was now no occasion for him to wait for his money, and, thanking us profusely for our patronage and a.s.suring us that he was ever at our service, summoned his employee and withdrew humbly enough.

It was fully a quarter of an hour before the first wave of our pent-up enthusiasm had spent itself. After a positive debauch of self-congratulation, amicable bickering with regard to the precise order of precedence in which an antiquary would place our acquisitions, and breathless speculation concerning their true worth, we sank into sitting postures about the room and smiled affectionately upon one another.

"And now," said Berry, "what about tying them up?"

"What for?" said Jill.