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When, after an hour's weary drag to a remote end of the town, she had arrived at the pawnshop where was preserved the handsome clock of the distressed lady, and had confidently presented the ticket and the necessary money, the man had looked awhile perplexed. They had no such clock, he said. And then, as he further examined the ticket, a light broke in upon him.
As he came down into the little back room, his grandmother was sitting over her interminable accounts, each of which represented a little profit to herself, some a little relief to many, some a tragedy to a few; and many of which were in code, for these represented transactions of a character which no pawnshop, particularly one reputed to be a fence, wishes ever to have understood by those presumptive busy-bodies, the police.
There it was. It would have been annoying if someone else had been beforehand and had bought it. Inside the shop more dangling spectres hung and the place was almost dark. It was a shabby pawnshop, and the man lounging behind the counter was a shabby man with an unshaven, unamiable face. "I want to look at that pistol in the right-hand corner of your window," Antony Dart said.
Without a thrill he opened a thick envelope from The Millennium, scanned the face of a check that represented three hundred dollars, and noted that it was the payment on acceptance for "Adventure." Every debt he owed in the world, including the pawnshop, with its usurious interest, amounted to less than a hundred dollars.
"That's a sharp little brat of the miller's," said he, alluding to Jan. "And he ain't much like the others. Old-fashioned, too. Children mostly likes the gay picters, and worrits their mothers for 'em, bless 'em! But he picked out an ancient-looking thing, came from a bankrupt pawnshop, my dear, in a lot. I almost think I let it go too cheap; but that's my failing.
What does it matter, so long as we are not cheating anybody? The pawnshop is a most honorable and useful institution. No one is the worse for it, and many a one the better. Even the tradespeople will be a trifle the better. I shall be quite proud to know that I have a pawn-ticket in my pocket to fall back upon. Oh, there's that old silk dress your mother sent me I do believe that would bring more.
"How much money had you in the world when you went to the pawnshop yesterday afternoon?" demanded Mr. Parminter, with a sudden keen glance. Lauriston flushed scarlet. "If you insist on knowing," he said. "I'd just nothing."
"It really has a story. You say you found this on the Bowery, in a pawnshop. Indeed! Well, of course, you know Mr. Lockwood could not have left it there." Miss Catherwaight shook her head vehemently and smiled in deprecation. "This medal was in his safe when he lived on Thirty-fifth Street at the time he was robbed, and the burglars took this with the rest of the silver and pawned it, I suppose.
Barney was angry; Barney was cunning; Barney would stop at nothing to gain his ends. What might be behind his threatening words? The next morning as she was coming in with milk for her breakfast coffee, she met Larry in the Duchess's room behind the pawnshop. He smilingly planted himself squarely in her way. "See here, Maggie aren't you ever going to speak to a fellow?"
But Miss Egerton was gone. She walked quickly down the street, hoping every moment to overtake Jasmine. Miss Egerton had old-fashioned ideas about many things, and nothing could exceed her horror at the thought of this pretty and refined-looking child finding her way alone to a pawnshop. "Poor little girl!" she said to herself. "She must be really in absolute want. What has she taken to pawn?
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