I had to confess that the City Hotel was very highly regarded by most of our citizens.

Again, after a brief interval of stupefaction, did James Walsingham Price call upon his Maker.  “And yet,” he murmured, “we are spending millions annually to impose mere theology upon savages far less benighted.  Think for a moment what a tithe of that money would do for these poor people.  Take the matter of green salads alone—­to say nothing of soups—­don’t you have so simple a thing as lettuce here?”

“We do,” I said, “but it’s regarded as a trifle.  They put vinegar and sugar on it and cut it up with their knives.”

My guest shuddered.

“I dare say it’s hopeless, but I shall always be glad to remember that you exist away from your City Hotel.”

Thus did we reach the coffee and some cognac which the late L.Q.  Peavey had gifted me with by the hands of his estimable kinswoman.

“And now to business,” said my guest.  His whimsical gray eyes had become studious and detached from our surroundings.  He had a generous mouth, which he seemed habitually to sew up in a close-drawn seam, but this would suddenly and pleasantly rip in moments of forgetfulness.  Being the collector at this moment, the mouth was tightly stitched.

“Let me begin this way,” he said.  “There are exactly six pieces in that house that will prevent my being honest so long as they are not mine.  I am not unmindful of your succor, Major.  I’ll prove that to you if you look me up in town,—­send me a wire and a room shall be waiting for you,—­and I am enraptured by that small and lively brown lady.  Nevertheless I shall remain a collector and, humanly speaking, an ingrate, a wolf, a caitiff, until those six articles are mine.  Make them mine, and for the remainder of that stuff you shall have the benefit of an experience that has been of incredible cost.  Accept my figure, and I promise you as man to man to de-Cohenize myself utterly.”

“They are yours,” I said—­“what are they and what is the figure?  Clem—­Mr. Price’s glass.”

“There—­you disarm me.  One bit of haggling or hesitation might have hardened me even now; the serpent within me would have lifted its head and struck.  But you have saved yourself—­and very well for that!  The articles are those six ball-and-claw-foot chairs with violin backs.  I will pay fifty dollars apiece for those.  Remember—­it is the voice of Cohen.  The chairs are worth more—­some day they’ll fetch twice that; but, really, I must throw a sop to that collector-Cerberus within me.  He’s entitled to something.  He had the wit to fetch me here.”

“The chairs are yours,” I said, wondering if I had not mistaken his offer, but determining not to betray this.

“A little memorandum of sale, if you please—­and I’ll give you my check.  That larger sideboard would also have stood in the way, but those glass handles aren’t the originals.”

The formality was soon despatched, and my curious friend became truly human.