“Odd what different things men do,” he continued. “There’s all sorts
of trades, isn’t there? I often sit for hours watching men and
wondering what they are. Sometimes you can tell easily. A carpenter,
for instance, often has a rule pocket in his trousers that you can
spot. A lawyer’s clerk has a certain way with him. Horses always leave
their mark on men, and you can tell coachmen even in plain clothes. But
there’s many to baffle you.”
“Yes,” I said, “it needs a Sherlock Holmes.”
“And yet there’s some to puzzle even him,” said my man. “Now what do
you think he’d make of me?”
Upon my word I couldn’t say. He was just the ordinary artisan, with
a little thoughtfulness added. A small, pale man, grizzled and neat,
but the clothes were old. The shininess and bagginess of the knees
suggested much kneeling; nothing else gave me a hint.
“I give that up too,” I said.
“Well,” he replied, “I’ll tell you, because you’re a stranger. I’m a
worm-holer.”
“A worm-holer?”
“Yes, I make worm-holes in furniture to make it seem older and fetch a
better price.”
“Great heavens!” I said; “I have heard of it, of course, but I never
thought to meet a worm-holer face to face. How do you do it?”
“It’s not difficult,” he said, “to make the actual holes. The trick is
to make ’em look real.”
“And what becomes of the furniture?”
“America chiefly,” he said. “They like old English things there, the
older the better. Guaranteed Tudor things will fetch anything ... we
guarantee all ours.”
“And you have no conscience about it?” I asked.
“None,” he said. “Not any more. I had a little once, but there,
the Americans are so happy with their finds it would be a shame to
disappoint them. I look on myself as a benefactor to the nation now. I
often lie awake at nights--I sleep badly--thinking of the collectors in
U.S.A. hugging themselves with joy to think of the treasures I’ve made
for them.”