“It’s fearfully slow work,” he said. “Sometimes I think I’ll never make
it. Sometimes I fear that the house is a mirage that can never be
reached. But I conquer these fits of despair; I put on full steam and
sell dolls like a fiend incarnate.” He made a face. “Little bores,” he
added. We had reached the front door of the museum.
“Well, good-by,” Appleby said. “Glad I saw you. Let’s have lunch
sometime. Have to go back downtown and cable Peru. Just dropped in here
to try that Napoleonic bed. Now I can cross canopied beds off my list.”
He did so.
Then I saw him make a hasty exit, and I saw his brown-suited back
disappear in pursuit of a bus.
We never did have that lunch; he disappeared from my life and it was
some years before I saw him again. It was at an auction. I heard an
excited tenor voice bidding on a dragon-sprinkled Chinese rug.
Appleby shook hands with me vigorously, without taking his eyes off the
auctioneer. He seemed in excellent health and spirits; he had color in
his cheeks and a spark in his eyes. He bought the rug.
“This makes the seventh rug I’ve bought,” he whispered to me
breathlessly.
“How’s the house?” I asked.
“Still in the blue-print stage,” he said, a little sadly. “But I’ve
earned nearly enough to pay for the first floor. And I’ve got my eye on
a wonderful site in Connecticut. You should see the hanging lamp I
picked up at a sale last week! Very French and cubistic.” His eyes
glowed.
“For your old-Spanish room?” I asked with a smile.
“Oh, now it’s going to be a modern French room,” he said.
“Still selling dolls, Appleby?”
“Yes, worse luck. I mean I still get no thrill out of the work. But I’m
to be made sales manager the first of the year. That means more money,
and every dollar I make brings me nearer my house in the country, and
freedom.”