"I was growing a great lad, then," commented Mr. Rowlandson. "You have
the advantage of me by several years, I fancy."
"I shall not see sixty again," said Sir Peter; after a pause he
added,--"I hope your trade is good; but everything is going to the
devil, and I assume the bookselling business goes with the rest. The
radicals are in the saddle--and driving headlong to destruction."
"I remember an aunt of mine, many years ago, who had fears for her
country," was Mr. Rowlandson's rejoinder. "She stopped taking in the
county paper, and depended on 'The Religious Weekly' for news, the rest
of her days. She said there were no signs of change in that. Old Aunt
Deborah! My me! But the bookselling trade does very well, thank you, Sir
Peter. The magazines are the only retarding influence."
Mr. Rowlandson moved one of the parcels on the table a little nearer to
him and slyly loosened the string.
"Occasionally I do a bit of business a little out of my line," he
continued. "This morning, for example, I made a deal that promises a
profit--a very pretty profit. Now that I come to think, it might be of
interest to you to hear of it. It was a deal in old valentines? I recall
you once bought a collection."
Sir Peter started.
"These old valentines were brought to the shop by a young woman in
reduced circumstances She did not want to sell them, I fancy. She seemed
rather fond of them." Mr. Rowlandson sipped his sherry; he lingered over
it. "Yes, I should say she was rather fond of them. Well,--that isn't my
affair. I advanced some money on them? just enough to tide over the
present difficulty. Of course, she and her young husband----"
Sir Peter looked up quickly; he had been gazing into the fire. Mr.
Rowlandson's face was placid.
"She and her young husband will want more money," he continued. "Yes,
they will certainly want more money. And when the proper time
comes----" He hesitated as though at a loss for the right words. "Down
I come on them--pounce! and sell out the valentines--and take my profit."
Mr. Rowlandson took another sip of sherry with evident enjoyment.
Their eyes met. Sir Peter scowled.
"She--was--my niece?" he inquired.
"Well, bless my soul!" pondered Mr. Rowlandson, as though the thought
struck him for the first time. "They may have been the same valentines
you bought at that sale--whose was it?--so many years ago. Of course,
they may have been. I have a few of them with me--" He reached for the
parcel with the loosened string.
"You know they are the same," said Sir Peter savagely. "Let this farce
end at once. You should be ashamed, Rowlandson, to seek your shabby
profit in the helplessness of a misguided child, ignorant of the
world--and its hard, rough usage. I am surprised that you would do
it--but that you should tell of it--even boast of it, amazes me.
However--trade blunts a certain delicacy of feeling that--"