head-dresses, shoes, and sandals from every clime under the sun—in short, it was the most heterogeneous and the oddest collection of things I had ever beheld under one roof, while the combination of scents and smells that assailed the nostrils defies even a suggestive description.
I had cropped my hair short à la Française, donned a blue blouse, a much-worn pair of trousers, and sabots. Ostensibly I was a French ouvrier, but from a certain assumed sullen expression, and a furtiveness of look, I might have aroused suspicion that I was not averse to any little enterprise, however illegitimate. Indeed, I had purposely endeavoured to suggest that I was by no means unfamiliar with the French hulks of Brest.
As I entered the emporium of curios I was confronted by a strange-looking little man, who eyed me with a pair of eyes that were as keen as hawk's, and of a purple blackness of hue. His face was of the most pronounced Jewish type, and his nose singularly suggestive of the beak of a bird of prey. He wore a Persian cap of embroidered velvet, and was otherwise attired in a very much frayed and faded Eastern robe, loosely held together at the waist by a silken cord ornamented with gold thread, while his feet were thrust into a pair of Turkish slippers. In age he was probably about thirty, though he really looked older, while his general expression was that of cupidity and cunning. He was engaged in examining a bundle of silk handkerchiefs from some Eastern bazaar, and, as I entered, he snarled out, as he fixed his eyes upon me—
"What do you want?"
He spoke in French, of course, and I answered him in French.
"I want to see the head of the firm," I said.
"I'm the head at present," he growled again. "What is your business?
"Trade," I mumbled.
"What have you got to trade?" he demanded in the same growling sort of way.
"Nothing," I answered sharply, "if you treat me like a dog."
"Where do you come from?" he asked with a sort of savage eageress.
"Paris," was my curt answer.
"So. And what are you?
"Something more than I seem," I muttered.
"And what have you got to trade?" he asked, growing more eager.
"Gems and jewels," I replied, fixing my eyes upon him, and I saw his grow brighter, if that were possible, while in their dark depths the auri sacra fames manifested itself as I had never to my knowledge seen it do in such a way in any other eyes. The light that gleamed from those dark orbs was the light that comes into the miser's eyes at the sight of a heap of gold.
"Where did you get them?! he fairly gasped out, suppressing his excitement as well as he could, though it was too manifest to be altogether concealed.
"Well, sir, that's my business," I replied; "but I had a hint given me by one who is as staunch as steel that your firm would do a trade. I'd like to see your father, though."
"You can't."
"Why not?"
"Because he is not here. I tell you I'm the head at present, and I can do business as well as he can."
I affected not to notice this remark, but asked—
"When will your father be back?"
"I don't know."
"Can you give me no idea?"
"No."
"Then I'll come again," I said, and I made a movement as if about to go.
"Stay!" he cried. "If you want a good market, it is here; and I'll deal fairly with you, if you have stuff that is worth attention."
"Oh, of that there is no doubt. But I'll come again when your father is in."
This reiteration irritated him, and he said in the snarling way I had already noticed—
"You are a fool, and if you won't trade with me, you shan't trade with my father."
"Well, that may be so," I said with indifference, "but I'll try him, anyway."
"Then you'll have to wait a pretty long time."
"Why?"
"Because he's not in the country."
"Where is he?"
"He's in Morocco," came the unguarded answer; and, though it certainly might have been my fancy, I believe I detected in his face evidence of a feeling on his part that he had been foolish in speaking so hurriedly.
"Oh, he's in Morccco, is he!" I exclaimed. "Well, that's unfortunate for me." Then after some moments of reflection, I asked, "Are you to be trusted?"
