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Blobbs, who was in charge of the shop, and that any discussions with him as to the price would be useless. "You're an Hinglishnan, I take it," came from the lowest dot of the five, a blurred and uncertain mouth. Dalton colored slightly and nodded. "Well, what I should adwise ye to do is to take this 'ere lace to some of them hold furnitoor shops. I know what this is.
Looked at from behind, Blobbs was all shirt-sleeves and waist-coat, the back of his flat head resting like a lid on his shoulders. Looked at from the front, Blobbs developed into a person with shoe-brush whiskers bristling against two yellow cheeks, the features being the five dots a child always insists upon when drawing a face. Dalton saw at a glance that it was Mrs. Blobbs, and not Mr.
Blobbs, the Polish wife of an English cheap John, and with a quick sliding movement, he paused in front of the narrow door.
"I have just left your old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Blobbs," he began gayly, "who have advised me to bring to you rather a rare piece of lace belonging to my wife. Fine, isn't it?" He loosened the bundle and shook out the folds of the mantilla. Otto put on his glasses, felt the texture of the piece between his fingers, and spread out the pattern for closer examination.
Mike, you go up and ask my little girl Masie if she can find dot big tureen vich I bought from old Mrs. Blobbs who keeps dot old-clothes place on Second Avenue. And you vas sure about dis china?" "Very sure." "How do you know?" "From the mark." "Vot's it vorth?" "The cups and saucers would bring about two pounds apiece in London.
Dalton crumpled up the black wad, slid the package under his coat, and without a word of thanks left the shop. This was not the first time Blobbs had sent Kling a customer. Indeed, there had always been more or less of a trade between the two establishments. For, while Mrs.
Blobbs had a license and could advance money at reasonable rates, her principal business was in old-clothes and ready-to-wear finery. Being near "The Avenue" and well known to its denizens, many of their outgrown and out-of-fashion garments had passed across her counter. Here the young man who pounded away on Masie's piano, the night of her birthday party, borrowed, for a trifle, his evening suit.
The performance was repeated twice, his last stop being in front of a gold sign notifying the indigent and the guilty that one Blobbs bought, sold, and exchanged various articles of wearing-apparel for cash or its equivalent.
"Yes, dot's a good piece of lace. Vot you vant to do vid it? Dere's a hole in it, you see," and he thrust a pudgy finger into the gash. "Yes, I know," returned Dalton, who, with his eye still on the dog, had been crushing it together so that the tear might not show; "but that is easily remedied. I want to sell it. Mr. Blobbs tells me it is worth a hundred dollars." "Is dot so?
He waited until she had boarded a car, then wheeled quickly and dashed up Third Avenue, crossing 26th Street at an angle, forging along toward Kling's. He was through with the old woman. She was English, and so was Dalton, and so, for that matter, was a man who, Blobbs had told him, had "blown in" at Kling's about a year ago from nobody knew where. They'd all help one another these English.
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