“I shall be glad,” I said, “to present you to Mrs. Lansdale.”

Again had my caller’s glance trailed across the breakfast table, where the omelette, the muffins, and the coffee-urn waited.  The glance was politely unnoting, but in it there yet lurked, far back, the unmistakable quality of a caress.  In an instant I remembered, and, with a pang of sympathy, I became his hungered brother.

“By the way, Mr. Price, are you staying at the City Hotel?”

“The man said it was the only place, you know.”

“You had breakfast there this morning?” He bowed his assent eloquently, I thought.

“Then by all means sit down and have breakfast.”

“Oh, really, no—­by no means—­I assure you I’d a capital breakfast—­”

“Clem!”

Clem placed a chair, into which Mr. Price dropped without loss of time, though protesting with polished vehemence against the imposition.

His eyes shone, nevertheless, as Clem set a cup of coffee at his elbow and brought a plate.

“May I ask when you arrived?” I questioned.

“Only last evening.”

“Then you dined at the City Hotel?”

“Major Blake, I will be honest with you—­I did!”

“Clem, another omelette, quick—­but first fetch some oranges, then put on a lot more of that Virginia ham and mix up some waffles, too.  Hurry along!”

“Really, you are very good, Major.”

“Not that,” I answered modestly; “I’ve merely eaten at the City Hotel.”  But I doubt if he heard, for he lovingly inhaled the aroma of his coffee with half-shut eyes.

“I am delighted to have met you,” he said.  “If ever you come to New York—­” He tore himself from the omelette long enough to scribble the name of a club on the card by my plate.

“I rarely crave more than coffee and a roll in the morning,” he continued, after the second omelette, the ham, the waffles, and more coffee had been consumed.  “I fancy it’s your bracing air.”

I fancied it was only the City Hotel, but I did not revert to that.

When at last Mr. Price lighted a cigar which I had procured at an immense distance from Slocum County, he spoke of furniture, also of Cohen.

Beheld through the romantic mist of after-breakfast, Cohen was, perhaps, not wholly a shark; at least not more than any dealer in old furniture.  Really, they were almost forced to be sharks.  It was not in the nature of the business that they should lead honest lives.  Mere collectors—­of which class my guest was—­were bad enough.  Still, if you could catch a collector in one of his human moments—­

He blew forth the smoke of my cigar with a relish so poignant that I suspected he had already tried one of Jake Kilburn’s best, the kind concerning which Jake feels it considerate to warn purchasers that they are “five cents, straight” and not six for a quarter.  I saw that if the collector before me were subject to human moments, he must be suffering one now.  So, while he smoked, I told him freely of Miss Caroline, of her furniture and her plight.