Mrs. Blobbs’s curt refusal to receive the lace only added fuel to the blazing thought that had flared up in Dalton’s mind when he recalled the certificates.  Holding on to them had caused one explosion.  The mantilla might prove another such bomb.  He dared not leave it at home and he could not carry it for an indefinite time on his person.  If the man Kling would pay any decent price for it, he could have it and welcome.

With the grim spectre still linking arms with him he hurried on, making short-cuts across the streets, until he arrived at Kling’s corner.  At this point he paused.  His terror must not betray him.  Shaking himself free of the spectre, he assumed his one-time nonchalant air, entered the store and walked down the middle aisle, between the lines of sideboards, bureaus and high desks drawn up in dress parade.  Over the barricade of the small office he caught the shine of Otto’s bald head, the only other live occupant, except Fudge, who had crept out from behind a bureau, and bounded back with a growl.  Fudge had sniffed around the legs of a good many people, and might have written their biographies, but Dalton was new to him.  Few thieves had ever entered Kling’s doors.

“I have just left your old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Blobbs,” he began gayly, “who have advised me to bring to you rather a rare piece of lace belonging to my wife.  Fine, isn’t it?” He loosened the bundle and shook out the folds of the mantilla.

Otto put on his glasses, felt the texture of the piece between his fingers, and spread out the pattern for closer examination.  “Yes, dot’s a good piece of lace.  Vot you vant to do vid it?  Dere’s a hole in it, you see,” and he thrust a pudgy finger into the gash.

“Yes, I know,” returned Dalton, who, with his eye still on the dog, had been crushing it together so that the tear might not show; “but that is easily remedied.  I want to sell it.  Mr. Blobbs tells me it is worth a hundred dollars.”

“Is dot so?  Vell—­vell—­a hundred tollars!  Dot’s a good deal of money.”  He had begun to wrap it up, tucking in the ends.  “No—­dot Fudge dog don’t bite—­ go away, you.  T’ank you for lettin’ me see it, tell Mr. Blobbs, but I don’t vant it at dot price.  And I doan know I vant it at any price.  Dey doan buy dem t’ings any more.”

Dalton saw that the mantilla had favorably impressed the dealer.  He had caught the look of pleasure when the lace was first unrolled, reading the man’s brain as he had often read the brains of the men at home who listened to some rose-colored prospectus.  These experiences had taught him that there was always a supreme moment when one must stop praising an article for sale, whether it were a rubber concession from an African chief or a pound of tea over a grocer’s counter.  This moment had arrived with Kling.

“I agree with you,” he said smilingly.  “The valuation was Mr. Blobbs’s, not mine.  I told him I should be glad to get half that amount—­or even less.”