He commended the tale.

“One of the best I ever heard,” he declared.  “Only, if you’ll pardon me, it sounds too good to be true.  It sounds, indeed, like a ’plant,’—­fine old Southern family, impoverished by war—­faithful body-servant—­old Colonial mansion despoiled of its heirlooms—­rare opportunities for the collector.  Really, Major, you should see some of the stuff that was landed on me when I began, years ago, with a story almost as good.  Reproductions, every piece of it, with as fine an imitation of worm-eaten backs as you could ever wish to see.”

I had never wished to see any worm-eaten backs whatever, but I sought to betray regret that I had not encountered this surpassing lot of them.

“Of course,” he continued, “you will understand that I am speaking now as a hardened collector, whose life is beset with pitfalls and with gins—­not as a starved wretch to the saver of his life.”

“You shall see the stuff,” I said.

“Oh, by all means, and the quicker the better.  Cohen is waiting at the hotel for me now—­at the foot of the front stairway, and he may suspect any minute that I was mean enough to slink down the back stairs and out through an alley.  In fact, I’m rather excited at the prospect of seeing that furniture—­Cohen condemned it so bitterly.”

“He sent an offer of six hundred dollars for it last night,” I said.  Hereupon my guest became truly excited.

“He did—­six hundred—­Cohen did?  I don’t wish to be rude, old chap, but would you mind hastening?  That is more eloquent than all your story.”

For half an hour, notwithstanding his eagerness, Mr. James Walsingham Price succumbed to the manner of Miss Caroline.  Noting the lack of compunction with which she played upon him before my very eyes, I divined that the late Colonel Lansdale had not found the need of pistols entirely done away with even by the sacrament of marriage.

Not until Clem announced “Mr. Cohen” did the self-confessed collector cease to be a man.

“Not at home,” said Miss Caroline, crisply.  Price grinned with appreciation and fell to examining the furniture in strange ways.

It was a busy day for him, but I could see that he found it enjoyable, and strangely was it borne in upon me that Miss Caroline’s ancient stuff was in some sense desirable.

More than once did Price permit some sign of emotion to be read in his face—­as when the sixth chair of a certain set was at last found supporting a water-pail in the kitchen.  The house was not large, but it was crowded, and Price was frankly surprised at the number of things it held.

At six o’clock he went to dine with me, Miss Caroline having told him that I was authorized to act for her on any proposal he might have to make.

“You have saved me again,” he said warmly, in the midst of Clem’s dinner.  “I assure you, Major, that hotel is infamous.  I’m surprised, you know, that something isn’t done about it by the authorities.”