"You will have to produce your references, gentlemen, before I can discuss anything with you," I said, after swallowing very hard. (It must have been my pride.)
They stared. "Good Lord!" gasped the bristly one, blinking his eyes. "Don't you know who this gentleman is? You—you appear to be an American. You must know Mr. Riley-Werkheimer of New York."
"I regret to say that I have never heard of Mr. Riley-Werkheimer. I did not know that Mrs. Riley-Werkheimer's husband was living. And may I ask who you are?"
"Oh, I am also a nobody," said he, with a wink at his purple-jowled companion. "I am only poor old Rocksworth, the president of the—"
"Oh, don't say anything more, Mr. Rocksworth," I cried. "I have heard of you. This fine old spinet? Well, it has been reduced in price. Ten thousand dollars, Mr. Rocksworth."
"Ten thousand nothing! I'll take it at seventy-five dollars. And now let's talk about this here hall-seat. My wife thinks it's a fake. What is its history, and what sort of guarantee can you—"
"A fake!" I cried in dismay. "My dear Mr. Rocksworth, that is the very hall-seat that Pontius Pilate sat in when waiting for an audience with the first of the great Teutonic barons. The treaty between the Romans and the Teutons was signed on that table over there—the one you have so judiciously selected, I perceive. Of course, you know that this was the Saxon seat of government. Charlemagne lived here with all his court."
They tried not to look impressed, but rather overdid it.
"That's the sort of a story you fellows always put up, you skinflints from Boston. I'll bet my head you are from Boston," said Mr. Rocksworth shrewdly.
"I couldn't afford to have you lose your head, Mr. Rocksworth, so I shan't take you on," said I merrily.
"Don't get fresh now," said he stiffly.
Mr. Riley-Werkheimer walked past me to take a closer look at the seat, almost treading on my toes rather than to give an inch to me.
"How can you prove that it's the genuine article?" he demanded curtly.
"You have my word for it, sir," I said quietly.
"Pish tush!" said he.
Mr. Rocksworth turned in the direction of the banquet hall.
"Carrie!" he shouted. "Come here a minute, will you?"
"Don't shout like that, Orson," came back from the porcelain closet. "You almost made me drop this thing."
"Well, drop it, and come on. This is important."
I wiped the moisture from my brow and respectfully put my clenched fists into my pockets.
A minute later, three females appeared on the scene, all of them dusting their hands and curling their noses in disgust.
"I never saw such a dirty place," said the foremost, a large lady who couldn't, by any circumstance of fate, have been anybody's wife but Rocksworth's. "It's filthy! What do you want?"
"I've bought this thing here for seventy-five. You said I couldn't get it for a nickle under a thousand. And say, this man tells me the hall seat here belonged to Pontius Pilate in—"
"Pardon me," I interrupted, "I merely said that he sat in it. I am not trying to deceive you, sir."
"And the treaty was signed on this table," said Mr. Riley-Werkheimer. He addressed himself to a plump young lady with a distorted bust and a twenty-two inch waist. "Maude, what do you know about the Roman-Teutonic treaty? We'll catch you now, my friend," he went on, turning to me. "My daughter is up in ancient history. She's an authority."
Miss Maude appeared to be racking her brain. I undertook to assist her.
"I mean the second treaty, after the fall of Nuremburg," I explained.
"Oh," she said, instantly relieved. "Was it really signed here, right here in this hall? Oh, Father! We must have that table."
"You are sure there was a treaty, Maude?" demanded her parent accusingly.
"Certainly," she cried. "The Teutons ceded Alsace-Lorraine to—"
"Pardon me once more," I cried, and this time I plead guilty to a blush, "you are thinking of the other treaty—the one at Metz, Miss Riley-Werkheimer. This, as you will recall, ante-dates that one by—oh, several years."
"Thank you," she said, quite condescendingly. "I was confused for a moment. Of course, Father, I can't say that it was signed here or on this table as the young man says. I only know that there was a treaty. I do wish you'd come and see the fire-screen I've found—"
"Let's get this out of our system first," said her father. "If you can show me statistics and the proper proof that this is the genuine table, young man, I'll—"
"Pray rest easy, sir," I said. "We can take it up later on. The facts are—"
"And this Pontius Pilate seat," interrupted Rocksworth, biting off the end of a fresh cigar. "What about it? Got a match?"
"Get the gentleman a match, Britton," I said, thereby giving my valet an opportunity to do his exploding in the pantry. "I can only affirm, sir, that it is common history that Pontius Pilate spent a portion of his exile here in the sixth century. It is reasonable to assume that he sat in this seat, being an old man unused to difficult stairways. He—"
"Buy it, Orson," said his wife, with authority. "We'll take a chance on it. If it isn't the right thing, we can sell it to the second-hand dealers. What's the price?"
"A thousand dollars to you, madam," said I.
They were at once suspicious. While they were busily engaged in looking the seat over as the porters shifted it about at all angles, I stepped over and ordered my workmen to resume their operations. I was beginning to get sour and angry again, having missed my coffee. From the culinary regions there ascended a most horrific odour of fried onions. If there is one thing I really resent it is a fried onion. I do not know why I should have felt the way I did about it on this occasion, but I am mean enough now to confess that I hailed the triumphal entry of that pernicious odour with a meanness of spirit that leaves nothing to be explained.
"Good gracious!" gasped the aristocratic Mrs. Riley-Werkheimer, holding her nose. "Do you smell that"?
"Onions! My Gawd!" sniffed Maude. "How I hate 'em!"
Mr. Rocksworth forgot his dignity. "Hate 'em?" he cried, his eyes rolling. "I just love 'em!"
"Orson!" said his wife, transfixing him with a glare. "What will people think of you?"
"I like 'em too," admitted Mr. Riley-Werkheimer, perceiving at once whom she meant by "people." He puffed out his chest.
At that instant the carpenters, plumbers and stone masons resumed their infernal racket, while scrubwomen, polishers and painters began to move intimately among us.
"Here!" roared Mr. Rocksworth. "Stop this beastly noise! What the deuce do you mean, sir, permitting these scoundrels to raise the dead like this? Confound 'em, I stopped them once. Here! You! Let up on that, will you?"
I moved forward apologetically. "I am afraid it is not onions you smell, ladies and gentlemen." I had taken my cue with surprising quickness. "They are raising the dead. The place is fairly alive with dead rats and—"
"Good Lord!" gasped Riley-Werkheimer. "We'll get the bubonic plague here."
"Oh, I know onions," said Rocksworth calmly. "Can't fool me on onions. They are onions, ain't they, Carrie?"
"They are!" said she. "What a pity to have this wonderful old castle actually devastated by workmen! It is an outrage—a crime. I should think the owner would turn over in his grave."
"Unhappily, I am the owner, madam," said I, slyly working my foot back into an elusive slipper.
"You