Quinneys 25

Quinneys 25

*III*

 

The poor fellow sobbed out the facts to his Susan in a passion of

self-abasement. The loss of the money was serious enough, but what

ground him to powder was the fact that he had become the laughing-stock

of the London dealers. Every man jack of them knew. He could not show

his face in an auction room without provoking spasms of raucous

laughter. The Dorchester auctioneer, called upon to prove his innocence

(which he did), made the tale public. It was acclaimed as "copy" by

scores of newspapers. And salt was rubbed into his wounds by the

reporters whose sympathy seemed to lie with the two scoundrels who had

devised so clever a scheme, and escaped with the swag! There was a

cruel headline: "A Biter Bit."

 

"Whom have I bit?" he demanded of Susan.

 

The little woman mingled her tears with his, but no words of hers could

assuage his misery or stem the torrent of self-accusation.

 

"Nice sort of fool you’ve married! A mug of mugs! You was right.

Ought to have remained in Melchester! Ought to have remained in

swaddling clothes! Ought never to have been born!"

 

He apostrophized Posy, now a child of ten.

 

"Nice sort of father you’ve got! Look at him! Why didn’t you choose

somebody else, hey? Picked a wrong’un, you did!"

 

Posy lifted her young voice and wept with her parents. And then Susan,

almost hysterical, said with unconscious humour:

 

"Gracious! Isn’t this a rainy afternoon!"

 

 

*IV*

 

After a few days the sun shone again. Lord Mel, who had returned to

England, called upon his former tenant, and listened with sympathy to

the tale of thwackings. Quinney added details which he had kept from

Susan. Fired by Tomlin, he had ventured into the Kaffir Market, where

the bears had mauled him. His losses, fortunately, were inconsiderable;

but once again he had been "downed" by Londoners. He was too proud to

whine before Lord Mel, and from long habit he expressed himself

whimsically.

 

"Not fit to cross the road without a policeman. Time I advertised for a

nurse or a keeper!"

 

"Are you thinking of going back to Melchester?"

 

At this Quinney exploded.

 

"My lord, I couldn’t face Pinker, and Mrs. Biddlecombe would cackle and

nag at me till I wrung her neck. She wrote to Susan to say that she was

sorry to hear that the Lord had seen fit to afflict me grievously. In

her heart she’s glad."

 

"You don’t blame the Lord?"

 

"I blame myself. I’ve been a silly daw, strutting about like a peacock.

I wanted a fight, and I’ve had it; but I can’t go back to Melchester. I

must stick it out here, win or lose, customers or no customers. If the

worst comes to the worst, I can sell to dealers. It means slavery."

 

"But you have some customers?"

 

"Very few—the wrong sort. Mostly women, who don’t value their own time

or mine. They look at my stuff, and call it ’rather nice’; they try to

pick up a few wrinkles about glass and porcelain, and then they drift

out, promising to call again."

 

"We must try to alter this."

 

"It does me good to see your lordship’s face again."

 

Lord Mel bought a table and some Irish glass. He shook Quinney’s hand

at parting genially.

 

"You’ve had a dose. Perhaps your system needed it. Pay my respects to

Mrs. Quinney, and tell her not to worry."

 

Quinney ran upstairs to Susan.

 

"Lord Mel’s been in. Sent his respects to you. You’re not to

worry—see?"

 

"I am not worrying much, Joe. Nobody escapes hard times."

 

"His lordship has faith in me. He ain’t offended. Just the same as

ever. I told him everything—more than I told you."

 

"More than you told me?"

 

"I lost a few hundreds dabbling in mines. All that foolishness is over

and done with. I mean to stick to what I know, and the people I know

who’ll stick to me. I shall give my undivided attention to business. I

mean to work harder than ever, so as to win back what I’ve lost."

 

"How much have you lost, dear?"

 

"I’m not speakin’ of money, Susie. I’ve lost my self-respect, and I

don’t stand with you just where I did."

 

"You do—you know you do!"

 

He shook his head obstinately.

 

"I know I don’t. You ain’t suffering from a crick in the neck along of

lookin’ up at me. I ain’t been soaring lately. Wriggling like a

crushed worm about fits me."

 

"Joe, dear, you’ve never quite understood me."

 

"Hey?"

 

"I married you for better or worse."

 

He stared at her amazedly.

 

"Lawsy! It never entered into your pretty head that it could be for

worse?"

 

"I should love you just the same if it were."

 

"No, no, that ain’t sense, Susie. It won’t wash. You loved me because I

was Joe Quinney—a feller with ambitions, a worker, a man with brains in

his head. If I failed you, I should expect you to despise me. I should

feel that I’d had you under false pretences."

 

Susan smiled very faintly. Her voice was curiously incisive:

 

"You have a lot to learn yet, Joe, about persons."

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER XII*

 

*POSY*

 

*I*

 

 

Lord Mel sent many customers to Soho Square. He felt sincerely sorry for

the little man, and told everybody that he was a fighter and a striver,

and "straight." Within a few months Quinney became the Quinney of old,

full of enthusiasm and swagger, exuding energy, quite confident that he

was soaring and likely to become a spire! An American millionaire one

morning made a clean sweep of half the treasures in the sanctuary.

Orders to furnish rooms in a given style with first-class reproductions

came joyously to hand, and were executed promptly and at a reasonable

price.

 

In due time, also, he became a member of the inner ring of big dealers.

They tried to "freeze him out" by inflating prices, often at a serious

loss to themselves, but eventually they were constrained to admit that

the Melchester man was too shrewd for them, with a knowledge of values

which seemed to have fallen upon him like the dew from heaven. At any

moment he might stop bidding with an abruptness very disconcerting to

the older men, leaving them with the _lapin_ which they were trying to

impose upon him.

 

In those early days he found the Caledonian market a happy

hunting-ground, securing immense quantities of Georgian steel

fire-irons, fenders, and dog-grates, at that time in no demand. He

stored them in his immense cellars, covering them with a villainous

preparation of his own which defied rust.

 

"Good stuff to lay down," he remarked.

 

Afterwards the big dealers asked him how he had contrived to foresee the

coming demand for old cut glass. Of this he had bought immense

quantities also. He answered them in his own fashion.

 

"Can you tell me why one breed of dog noses out truffles?"

 

He bought innumerable spinets, good, bad, and indifferent, with reckless

confidence. Even Tomlin remonstrated.

 

"What are you going to do with them?"

 

"You’ll see," said Quinney.

 

One more blunder—and the use to which he turned it—must be chronicled.

By this time he was recognized as an expert on eighteenth-century

furniture. But he admitted that there were one or two who knew more than

he. Tomlin, for example, who would drop in at least once a week for a

chat and a glass of brown sherry. Upon one of these visits he found

Quinney in a state of enthusiasm over a Chippendale armchair, unearthed

in a small provincial town. Tomlin examined it carefully, and

pronounced it a fake.

 

Quinney refused to believe this; but ultimately conviction that he had

been "had" once more was forced upon him.

 

"Bar none, it’s the best copy I ever saw," remarked Tomlin.

 

Quinney accepted his old friend’s chaff with some chucklings. Next day,

he returned to the provincial town, and discovered the young

cabinet-maker who had made the fake. He returned to Soho in triumph,

bringing the cabinet-maker with him. His name was James Miggott, and he

entered into a contract to serve Quinney for three years at a salary of

two pounds a week.

 

"Seems a lot," said Susan.

 

"He was earning twenty-five bob. I shall turn him loose on those

spinets."

 

Most people know something about Quinney’s spinets transformed by the

hand of the skilful James into writing-desks, sideboards, and

dressing-tables. The spinets brought many customers to Soho Square.

 

"Stock booming?" said Tomlin.

 

"It is," said Quinney. He added reflectively: "I sold a spinet to-day,

for which I gave fifteen shillings, for just the same number o’ pounds.

James put in just one week on it. That’s all, by Gum!"

 

Some dealers maintain that Quinney made his reputation with spinets,

inasmuch as he sold more of them for a couple of years than the trade

put together. But he himself believes that his Waterford glass brought the right customers—the famous collectors who buy little, but talk and write much. They liked Quinney because he was so keen; and he never grudged the time spent in showing his wares to non-buyers.