Urquhart said, “You’d better begin on Leslie.  You’re exactly what he wants.”

“Who’s Leslie?” Peter was eating buns and marmalade, in restored spirits.

“Leslie’s an Ignorant Rich.  He’s a Hebrew.  His parents weren’t called Leslie, but never mind.  Leslie rolls.  He also bounds, but not aggressively high.  One can quite stand him; in fact, he has his good points.  He’s rich but eager.  Also he doesn’t know a good thing when he sees it.  He lacks your discerning eye, Margery.  But such is his eagerness that he is determined to have good things, even though he doesn’t know them when he sees them.  He would like to be a connoisseur—­a collector of world-wide fame.  He would like to fill his house with things that would make people open their eyes and whistle.  But at present he’s got no guide but price and his own pure taste.  Consequently he gets hopelessly let in, and people whistle, but not in the way he wants.  He’s quite frank; he told me all about it.  What he wants is a man with a good eye, to do his shopping for him.  It would be an ideal berth for a man with the desire but not the power to purchase; a unique partnership of talent with capital.  There you are.  You supply the talent.  He’d take you on, for certain.  It would be a very nice little job for you to begin with.  By the time you’ve decorated his town house and his country seat and his shooting-box and all his other residences, you’ll be fairly started in your profession.  I’ll write to him about you.”

Peter chuckled.  “How frightfully funny, though.  I wonder why anyone should want to have things unless they like to have them for themselves.  Just as if I were to hire Streater, say, to buy really beautiful photographs of actresses for me!...  Well, suppose he didn’t like the things I bought for him?  Suppose our tastes didn’t agree?  Should I have to try and suit his, or would he have to put up with mine?”

“There’s only one taste in the matter,” Urquhart told him.  “He hasn’t got any.  You could buy him any old thing and tell him it was good and he’d believe you, provided it cost enough.  That’s why he has to have a buyer honest though poor—­he couldn’t check him in the least.  I shall tell him that, however many the things you might lie about, you are a George Washington where your precious bric-a-brac is concerned, because it’s the one thing you care about too much to take it flippantly.”

Peter chuckled again.  Life, having for a little while drifted perilously near to the shores of dullness, again bobbed merrily on the waters of farce.  What a lot of funny things there were, all waiting to be done!  This that Urquhart suggested should certainly, if possible, be one of them.

A week later, when Mr. Leslie had written to engage Peter’s services, Urquhart’s second cousin Rodney came into Peter’s room (a thing he had never done before, because he did not know Peter much) and said, “But why not start a curiosity shop of your own?  Or be a travelling pedlar?  It would be so much more amusing.”