Quinneys 30

Quinneys 30

Tom Tomlin was one of the very few who saw the Chippendale settee after

James had restored it. Within a few days he attempted to lure the young

man from Soho Square, but James refused an offer of a larger salary, and

elected to stay with Quinney. Possibly he mistrusted Tomlin, whose

general appearance was far from prepossessing. Tomlin, however, was not

easily baffled. He seized an early opportunity of speaking privately to

Quinney.

 

"Joe," he said, "this young feller is the goods. He can do the trick."

 

"Do what trick?"

 

Tomlin winked.

 

"Any trick, I take it, known to our trade. The very finest faker of old

furniture I ever came across. Now, as between man and man, are you going

to make a right and proper use of him?"

 

"What d’ye mean, Tom?"

 

"Tchah! You know well enough what I mean. Why beat about the bush with

an old friend? Are you going to turn this young man loose amongst that

old stuff you’ve collected?"

 

Quinney laughed, shaking his head.

 

"Am I going to let James Miggott fake up all that old stuff? No, by

Gum! No!"

 

"But, damn it! Why not?"

 

"Several reasons. One’ll do. I’ve sworn solemn not to sell fakes

unless they’re labelled as such."

 

"Of all the silly rot——"

 

"There it is."

 

Tomlin went away, but he returned next day, and asked for a glass of

brown sherry. Quinney had one, too.

 

"I’ve a proposition to make," said Tomlin. "You’ve got a small gold mine

in this Miggott, but you don’t mean to work him properly. Well, let me

do it."

 

"How?"

 

"Suppose I send you ’cripples’ to be mended. Any objections to that?"

 

"None."

 

"This young Miggott mends ’em, and puts in his best licks on ’em too.

Then you send ’em back to me."

 

"That all?"

 

Tomlin winked.

 

"Do you want to know any more? Is it your business to inquire what

becomes of the stuff after you’ve doctored it? And, mind you, I shall

pay high for the doctorin’. You leave that to me. You won’t be

disappointed with my cheques."

 

Let it be remembered, although we hold no brief for Quinney, that this

subtle temptation assailed him shortly after his bludgeonings, when he

was tingling with impatience to "get even" with the Londoners who had

"downed" him.

 

In fine, he accepted Tomlin’s offer.

 

Quinney has since confessed that at first he was very uneasy, honesty

having become a pleasant and profitable habit. There were moments when

he envied moral idiots like Tomlin, stout, smiling, red-faced sinners,

who positively wallowed and gloried in sinfulness. Tomlin pursued

pleasure upon any and every path. He went racing, attended football

matches, was a patron of the Drama and the Ring, ate and drank

immoderately, made no pretence of being faithful to Mrs. Tomlin, or

honest with the majority of his customers. His amazing knowledge of

Oriental porcelain had given him an international reputation. He never

attempted to deceive the experts, and, in consequence, was quoted as a

high authority in such papers as _The Collector_ and _Curios_. He knew

exactly what his customers needed, and was the cleverest salesman in the

kingdom. Less successful dealers affirmed that the devil took especial

care of Tom Tomlin.

 

 

*III*

 

Quinney had no reason to complain of Tomlin’s cheques. He knew that his

old friend was being scrupulously square, and sharing big profits with

him. Tomlin had customers from the Argentine, from the Brazils, from all

parts of the earth where fortunes are made and spent swiftly. The

"cripples" disappeared mysteriously, and were never heard of again. By

this time Tomlin had moved to his famous premises in Bond Street. He

had not achieved the position of Mr. Lark, because he lacked that great

man’s education and polish, but he was quite the equal of Mr. Bundy.

 

It is important to mention that Tomlin sent very few cripples to Soho

Square. Nor were they delivered by his vans. They arrived unexpectedly

from provincial towns; they were invariably authentic specimens, the

finest "stuff." No understrapper beheld them. James carried them

tenderly to his operating theatre, whence they emerged pale of

complexion, but sound in limb. Daily massage followed, innumerable

rubbings. Then Tomlin would drop in, and nudge Quinney, and chuckle.

The two dealers would pull out their glasses and examine the patient

with meticulous zeal. James would watch them with a slightly derisive

smile upon his handsome face. At the end of his three years’ engagement

Quinney raised his salary to three pounds a week. The little man

expected an extravagant __EXPRESSION__ of gratitude, but he didn’t get it.

At times James’s smile puzzled him.

 

 

*IV*

 

Posy remained at Bexhill-on-Sea till she was eighteen. Her friendship

for the Honeybuns had been slowly extinguished. Mrs. Honeybun, who

mortified everything in her thin body except pride, refused peremptorily

to see Posy against the expressed wish of her father. Posy wrote to

Ethel long screeds answered with enthusiasm at first and then

perfunctorily. At the end of the year the girls drifted apart.

 

Posy, however, made other friends. When she came home for her first

holidays, Quinney and Susan conspired together to make things pleasant

for her. She had plenty of pocket money. Susan and she went to many

plays, many concerts, all the good shows. Quinney rubbed his hands and

chuckled, but he declined to accompany them.

 

The two years of school passed with astonishing swiftness; and the

improvement to Posy quickened a lively gratitude in Quinney to Lord Mel.

She developed into a charming young woman, irresponsible as yet, but a

joyous creature, easy to please and be pleased. Quinney was delighted

with her. He told her solemnly:

 

"My poppet, you’re a perfect lady; yes, you are."

 

Posy went into peals of laughter.

 

"Daddy, how funny you are!"

 

This talk took place upon the day that Posy said good-bye to her

school-fellows, and returned home as a more or less finished product of

the boarding-school system.

 

"Funny? Me? I don’t feel funny, my pretty, when I look at you. I feel

proud. One way and t’other I suppose you’ve cost me nigh upon four

thousand pounds!"

 

"Daddy, dear! Not as much as that, surely?"

 

Quinney cocked his head at a sharp angle, while he computed certain

sums.

 

"I figure it out in this way," he said slowly. "In hard cash you stand

me in about fifteen hundred spread over the last ten years. Now, if I’d

stuffed that amount into Waterford glass, I could have cleaned up five

thousand at least. See?"

 

"I see," said Posy, and laughed again.

 

"The question now is," continued Quinney, absorbed in admiration of her

delicate colouring, "what the ’ell am I going to do with such a fancy

piece?"

 

"Father!" exclaimed Susan. "Do please try to remember that you’re not

talking to Mr. Tomlin."

 

"When I feel strongly," replied Quinney simply, "I just have to use

strong language. Posy has come home to what?"

 

"She’s come home, Joe. That’s enough. Why bother about anything else?"

 

"Because I’m the bothering sort, old dear—that’s why. I look ahead. I

count my chickens before they’re hatched."

 

Susan said slily:

 

"Yes, you made sure that this chicken was going to be hatched a boy."

 

The three laughed. It was a pleasant moment of compensation for long

years of anxiety and toil. Each had worked for it. Posy had submitted,

not without kickings and prickings, to strict discipline; Quinney, from

the child’s birth, had determined that the stream must rise higher than

its source; Susan, serenely hopeful about the future, had worried

unceasingly over the present, concerned about petty ailments, the

putting on and off of suitable under-linen, and so forth.

 

"Don’t bother about me, daddy; I’m all right."

 

"By Gum, you are! That’s why I bother. In my experience it’s the right bits that get smashed!"