"Um--ah!" yawned Mr. Van Styne at this, and stretched his arms out over his head. "I s'pose that ends my nap, eh?"

He shuffled out of the office after Mrs. Fabian and went into the store-house. When he saw the girls poking about amongst the old chairs, bureaus, and motley collection of furniture, he laughed, and said: "That's right! Find all the old bargains you can. I'm your man to sell them cheap to you."

Had he but known what he was about to do!

Mrs. Fabian led him down to the corner where the pile of four pictures were waiting on the dresser, and said: "These are the four I want a price on. The frames are all in good order and the gla.s.ses are not cracked at all."

Mr. Van Styne took a pair of old steel-rimmed specs from the vest-pocket over his heart, and pushed them upon his thin nose. He picked up the top oval frame, blew off the dust and laughed at the homely face that stared out at him. He turned to Mrs. Fabian with a twinkle in his eyes and said, jokingly:

"Now, if that gal was your relation and you wanted her ugly photograph that bad, I'd say the hull thing was wuth a dollar to you. But seein'

it's fifty year old, and you ain't near that, yet, I will sell her fer a quarter. The gla.s.s is wuth that, I reckon."

He placed it face down beside the other three pictures. "Now this one,"

taking up the rare old print with the newspaper packed in the back, "Ain't wuth a darn, so why do you pick it out?"

"But the gla.s.s is the right size and will cost me more to order, than I can get it for of you," remarked Mrs. Fabian, anxiously, while the girls held their breath.

The old auctioneer heard the note of anxiety in her tone and peered over his specs to study her guileless expression. She instantly guarded herself, when she saw his look, and so he saw only a nice lady who was now picking up the fish-picture.

"And this dining-room picture; how much will you take for _it_. Why not give me a job-lot price and I'll see. I may as well pack four as two in the automobile."

But Mr. Van Styne had not known there was an automobile; and he was wondering now, why people with a car should come in and pick out a few picture gla.s.ses to save money. He glanced over the last picture which was the large engraving, and then turned it over to look at its back.

"That's a mighty big sheet of gla.s.s in that one. That gla.s.s alone, cost about a dollar-forty. Then the frame's a good hard-wood frame, too. I'll look up my books and see who sent them pictures in for sale. Then I can see if they put a figger on them."

He made notes of the chalk numbers marked on the backs of the picture-boards and then started for his office. Mrs. Fabian, with sinking heart, followed at his heels.

"If he looks up his records and finds they came from the old house of Paul Revere and his descendants, he will never sell them at a decent price," thought she, impatiently.

She sat opposite the old man while he fumbled the pages of his book and slowly glanced down the entries, his bent fore-finger pointing to each item carefully as he read.

"Um! Here it is: Number 329, came from Sarah Dolan, who moved to a smaller flat last Spring. From this entry I see that all them seven pictures came from her. Do you happen to know her?"

Mr. Van Styne glanced up at his companion.

She shook her head, and he said, closing the book, "Why, Sally Dolan was cook fer the Revere boys, and when they broke up, she started a bordin'

house down on Morris Street. Then she took rheumatiz and was that crippled, she couldn't get about the kitchen no more, so she gave up. Her boys manage to keep her now, and she takes things easy. But she sure was a good cook!"

Much as Mrs. Fabian would have liked to question the old man about the Revere boys she feared he might remember that the cook was given a lot of old pictures when the boys "broke up", so she turned the subject adroitly.

"Well, I'll go and see what the girls have found out there, I guess. But I wish you'd fix a price on those four frames."

"Lem'me see, now. Sal Dolan didn't set no price, and if I say five dollars for the four, would you take 'em?"

"Dear me!" objected Mrs. Fabian, craftily. "The large one you said was worth about a dollar-thirty, and the fish-picture a dollar. That leaves two dollars and seventy cents for the other two. Isn't that pretty high for them?"

"But that fish picture makes a fine dinin' room piece, especially if you could get the mate what is a brace of quails."

"Oh well, rather than jew you down, I'll take them, if you will take the trouble to make me out a receipt for the four."

"Ain't this a cash sale?" queried the man, wonderingly.

"Of course, but two of them are for friends. I only intend keeping the other two. I want them, to have the bill to show, you see."

Thereupon Mr. Van Styne wrote out the bill on a sc.r.a.p of paper and receipted it, and then counted the five one dollar bills Mrs. Fabian had paid him. "Ten per cent fer me and the rest for Sally," he added as he rolled fifty cents inside four one dollar bills and pocketed the other fifty cents.

Mrs. Fabian was about to go for the pictures, when Polly came out. "I want to ask the auctioneer how much this little box and mirror are?" and she showed a lovely little Empire dressing-mirror to him. It was scratched and had been varnished, but its former beauty could be quickly restored, for the form and material were good as ever.

"I'm told that is a real antique. That piece come from the old Revere place, too. Mrs. Dolan says she heard it was used by the boy's grandmother. But I don't know what to charge."

"I'll give you ten dollars for it," eagerly said Polly.

"Ten dollars!" gasped the man, sinking back in his desk-chair.

Mrs. Fabian tried to signal Polly, but the girl was too intent on securing the gem. Then Mrs. Fabian said to the man:

"Dear me! The child has more money than brains, eh?" and laughed heartily.

"I ain't so sure about that. She certainly knows a good thing," returned Mr. Van Styne. Then he said to Polly: "Will you carry it right along with you, if I sell it for ten?"

"Of course!" declared she, and the sale was made.

"I guess we'd better be going, Polly," suggested Mrs. Fabian, now. This told the girl that the deal over the pictures had been consummated, but she did not ask questions then.

Mrs. Fabian went back to gather up her four precious pictures, and had the other girls help her carry them away. Then they bid the good old man good-by and started off.

"Come again, when you have more time to poke around," said he, as he stood on the doorstep watching them walk towards the car which was waiting a short distance down the street.

"We certainly will, and if you get anything really antique in the place at any time, drop me word, or telephone to the address I left on your desk, just now," said Mrs. Fabian.

Once the hunters were safely on the way to New York, the girls importuned Mrs. Fabian to tell them the story of the pictures, but she laughingly remarked:

"Do you know, we forgot all about our luncheon! Poor Carl must be famished!"

"Not much," retorted Carl. "I went to that quick lunch-room across from the old junk-shop, and got the best dinner for forty cents that I ever tasted. But we will stop for a picnic, when we reach the country, if you say so."

"No, indeed! We'll eat as we drive along, Carl," said Mrs. Fabian, then turning to the girls, she told the tale[A] of the old pictures and what she paid for them.

"Why!" gasped the wondering girls. "It can't be possible!"

At that, Mrs. Fabian produced the bill of sale and said: "I got this in case there ever should be any dispute over the legality of this negotiation. The two awful pictures we can give to some family along the road, but the two precious ones we will cherish as if they were the Koh-i-noor Diamond."

When the Ashbys and Mr. Fabian heard the story, and saw the validity of the two pictures, they sat astounded. Mr. Fabian then said:

"Polly really ought to immortalize her name by presenting this missing scroll to the Metropolitan Museum, but she can keep the letter and newspaper. That ought to be worth the price she paid for the 'gla.s.s'."

"That's just what I'll do, Mr. Fabian. I would never feel happy if I _kept_ a thing that is considered so rare, and has been sought for by the Museum's collectors."