Prince Sarrazin's Frogs

by Edgar Jepson

 

PRINCE SARRAZIN'S FROGS

By Edgar Jepson

ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE E. WOLFE

THE frogs were uncommonly attractive; and as Miss Timmins studied them one by one sheer delight made her beautiful blue eyes shine brighter and deepened the delicate color in her cheeks. It was plain to her trained eye that the frogs were the work of three carvers; the three of crystal were the work of one man, the three of bluish agate of a second, the brown agate and the green moss agate frogs of a third. All three of these carvers were artists; they had the right feeling; but the carver of the brown frog and the green was a genius. Miss Timmins wanted that green frog, and she wanted it badly. It was not so realistic as the others. The artist, abstracting, had given it simpler, more austere lines; it was the essential frog. But it was not for her. This lot would bring the collectors of Chinese hard stones in a body to the sale next day, and their bids would soar to a height which would make it impossible to make a pleasing profit on it.

With a sigh she turned to the consideration of the other lots, to find that there was one which would suit her very well—three jade amulets. She had a customer for jade amulets, a very modern and superstitious lady of forty who wore a green hat and wanted only to be loved. That and two other lots she would buy if they went cheap. She marked her catalogue with the prices to which she would go for them, then returned to the frogs and again studied the green frog, at length, with a loving eye. She left it with a sigh.

She kept seeing it with the eyes of her mind during the afternoon and evening. She might very well have dreamed of it. She often wanted badly a beautiful thing she saw in a salesroom; she had rarely wanted one as badly as she wanted that frog.

At one o'clock next day the sale began with forty lots of Japanese netsuke. Miss Timmins was not interested. She was chiefly concerned about the behavior of her eyes; they kept turning to the door. She knew really that they were looking for the entry of that good but exasperating customer, Lord Scredington; but not for a moment would she admit this to herself. Indeed, the conscious and correct Miss Timmins was annoyed by this behavior of her eyes; but she could not stop it, Something in her subconsciousness was the cause of it, something in the nature of a Scredington complex perhaps.

She reacted to that cheerful and wicked young peer in two very different ways; sometimes he seemed a veritable familiar spirit, sometimes he was her detestable bête noire. Always that was after he had given her some of his cheek, as she phrased it—called her “Beulah darling,” or caught her unaware and snatched a kiss.

Lord Scredington did not come through the door; Bouncer Bosanquet did. A paunchy man of forty with a roving black eye, wavy black hair and a large black mustache which he was wont to twirl with an air of irresistibility, he was always a bugbear to her. Three years before, when she was sixteen and beginning to take the active part in her father's business, he had taken her under his wing at the salesrooms, advising her what to buy and what not to buy. At first friendly, he had presently become gallant. An astonishingly accomplished teller of the tale, he had filled her girlish mind to the brim with stories about his romantic origin and romantic life, and gone a long way toward taking her girlish fancy. Then, fortunately, he had shamelessly tricked her out of a score of fine Japanese sword guards she had bought very cheaply, just because they had appealed to her and without knowing anything about them, at a suburban sale. On the top of this shock had come the information that he was a married man with six children, How she had hated him!

The netsuke came to an end and the sale of the lots of hard stones began. Miss Timmins was grieved to observe that prices were running high. But presently she was comforted, for the three jade amulets were knocked down to her for a sum on which she would make a very pleasing profit indeed. She was examining them, wondering whether the queer-looking one would not actually bring good luck, when the eight frogs were put up for sale. She watched the bidding.

Of a sudden she awoke to the fact that not a single collector of hard stones was present. She jerked upright on her chair, thrilling with sudden hope. If a dealer bought the lot, she might yet get the green frog. Few dealers would recognize how much finer it was than the others.

The bids ran slowly up to thirty pounds. Then only Bouncer Bosanquet and Huggins—Red Huggins—went on bidding. Miss Timmins thought that Huggins was not really keen on the frogs, but only bidding Bouncer up. He disliked Bouncer, who had tricked him out of a fine collection of amber, heartily; indeed, it was he who had, in his bitterness, conferred the title of Bouncer on him.

At Bouncer's bid of thirty-four pounds Huggins shrugged his shoulders and turned away; Bouncer twirled his mustache with a triumphant air and waited for the sound of the hammer.

Miss Timmins had never meant to spend forty pounds at this sale; she had about as much stock as she wanted. But thirty-four pounds for those frogs? No!

She bid thirty-five pounds. Bouncer came down from his height of satisfaction with a jolt. He scowled at her and bid thirty-six pounds. Miss Timmins nodded.

Farringdon said, “Thirty-seven.”

Bouncer drew himself up with an air and in commanding accents bid thirty-eight pounds. Miss Timmins nodded.

“Thirty-nine,” said Farringdon.

“Forty!” said Bouncer quickly.

Miss Timmins' heart leaped in her bosom; from his tone and from his quickness she guessed that that was his limit; indeed, she was sure of it. Farringdon would not give him credit to the amount of sixpence; he had come to the sale with only forty pounds in cash in his pocket. Confidently, she bid forty-one pounds. Farringdon knocked the lot down to her.

In her delight, her fingers trembled a little as she took the frogs from the tray the commissionaire set before her. She wrapped them and the jade amulets up, each in a sheet of tissue paper, and put them into her attaché case. Tingling with a pleasing sensation of victory, she left the salesroom. When she reached home she had to wash and polish the green frog before she took her hat off. She found that the fact that it was now her own had destroyed none of its charm for her.

She washed and polished the other frogs, but did not set them in the window. She put them away in a cabinet against the next visit of Lord: Scredington, not only because he would give her a better price for them than any other of her customers but because they would please him very much indeed—always supposing he gave her none of his cheek. If he did she would tell him at length how beautiful they were and how he would love them, and then sell them to someone else. She had a heart of gold.

The green frog she slipped into the silk pocket in her skirt in which she was wont to carry a new treasure. She kept putting her hand into that pocket and fondling it.

Late in the afternoon there came into the shop a slim, frail-looking woman of thirty-five, of a pale complexion, with a thin sharpish nose, a rather prim mouth, but very pleasant blue eyes. From her clothes Miss Timmins perceived that she was an American on her travels; from her accent, that she came from a Southern state.

She moved quietly about the shop, examining the objects of art and asking questions about them. She had a precise manner of speech and an uncommonly clear enunciation. Miss Timmins did not think that she would buy anything; she took it that she was picking her brains with a view to improving her own mind. As a rule Miss Timmins was brusque with such customers. But no one with that beautiful green frog in her pocket could be brusque with anyone; she was cool but courteous.

The lady took to her. Indeed, it looked as if she had not found other dealers so civil, and was grateful. Presently, apropos of a Ming bronze, she told Miss Timmins the history of her life. Her name was Calhoun—Anne Calhoun; she had been a school-teacher and had expected to remain a school-teacher till she could work no more; but in the previous year her brother John, who had gone North in 1899, had died and left her fifty thousand dollars. Some of her dearest dreams were coming true.

The story woke in Miss Timmins the keenest sympathy. She, too, had her dear dreams. Had she fifty thousand dollars, most of them would come true.

Anne Calhoun went on to tell her that she had a great ambition. She was resolved to take home with her a really great work of art, to be, apparently, a nucleus of culture in her home town, and on it she proposed to spend five thousand dollars. On the voyage over she had learned from a fellow passenger, by whose cultured outlook she had been vastly impressed, that if she desired to buy a really great work of art it would have to be Eastern and old; that modern artists, whether of the East or the West, had lost the secret of beauty; that five thousand dollars would go a very little way toward buying the beautiful things made in Europe before that secret was lost about the end of the fifteenth century; but that great masterpieces of the East were still to be found and bought by those who searched for them. Evidently her informant had been a purist and a modern of moderns—a most unfortunate adviser for the poor lady to have chanced on.

But Miss Timmins was wholly of his way of thinking; she said firmly, “He was quite right.”

“I'm so glad you think so,” said Anne Calhoun thankfully.

“But such a piece as you want, a really fine big piece, will take a lot of finding,” said Miss Timmins. “They don't come over by every steamer.”

“I believe I'm on the track of it,” said Anne Calhoun with a note of triumph in her voice. “Yesterday I was at a sale at Christie's and I happened to be sitting next to a gentleman who was very kind about telling me about the things that were being sold. And after the sale I told him what I have told you; and he told me that he believed he knew of the very thing I wanted.”

“He would,” said Miss Timmins with conviction.

“Yes; but it isn't one thing; it's eight things—a collection. And they're not in England; they're in Italy—eight frogs carved in agate and crystal and collected by Prince Sarrazin of Siena. Each frog is the absolute masterpiece of a different artist. The prince hunted China from end to end for them. Out of the hundreds of frogs of jade and chalcedony and agate and crystal offered to him, he brought back just these eight wonderful masterpieces. It isn't only the frogs themselves; it's the romance of it—the wonderful romance!” She clasped her hands with an air of gentle enthusiasm. “And my friend—I think I may call him my friend—thinks that he could get them for me for five thousand dollars.”

“Just five thousand dollars?” said Miss Timmins.

“Yes; and he's actually trying to get them. He cabled to the prince last night. I had a letter from him this morning saying that he'd done so.”

“M'm—what's his name?” said Miss Timmins, who was thinking and thinking hard.

“I mustn't tell you that,” said Anne Calhoun. “The whole matter has to be kept a profound secret.”

“It would be,” said Miss Timmins with conviction.

“I oughtn't really to have told you anything about it. But I'm sure the secret is safe with you. The Italian Government won't allow works of art to leave the country, you know,” Anne Calhoun added gravely.

“His initials aren't A. B. by any chance?” said Miss Timmins.

Anne Calhoun's eyes opened wide; and in the hushed voice of immense astonishment she said, “Why, you extraordinary girl! How ever did you guess?”

“I know his style,“ said Miss Timmins.

An expression of uneasy dismay slowly spread over Anne Calhoun's face.

She began, “Why, you don't mean——”

But Miss Timmins had finished her thinking. There would be developments; Albert Bosanquet was not going to lose five thousand dollars without a splendid effort. She was not going to nip that effort in the bud by saying too much.

She broke in:

“I don't mean anything at all. But I tell you what: I'll show you some crystal and agate frogs—quite good ones. You ought to know something about what you're going to buy.”

So saying, she went to the cabinet, took out the seven frogs and set them on the counter. Anne Calhoun, relieved, came to it eagerly; and they went over them one by one, at length, Miss Timmins explaining the quality of each and doing her best to make clear the differences in the work of the three artists.

Then she said carelessly, “Do you think you'd know these frogs again if you saw them?”

“I'm certain. I should know every one of them,” said Anne Calhoun with immense decision. “They're the sweetest and cutest things I ever saw; and now that you've told me about them so kindly and patiently, I see how beautiful they are. It's hard to believe that Prince Sarrazin's can be finer than these.”

“They certainly won't be much finer,” said Miss Timmins with dry certainty.

Then she took the green frog from her pocket and set it beside the brown one and added, “These two are the real masterpieces and by the same man. You can hunt through China from end to end, as Prince Sarrazin did, without finding anything better. And I bought these eight frogs at Farringdon's salesrooms this morning for forty-one pounds—a little less than two hundred dollars. So you know where you are.”

“Only two hundred dollars!” cried Anne Calhoun. “Why—why—I'll buy them from you, just for myself.”

Miss Timmins shook her head.

“No; I have a customer for them. And I don't think, if I were you, I should say anything to Mr. Bosanquet about having seen them. It would look a little distrustful, you know.”

“I certainly shan't,” said Anne Calhoun quickly. “And I'm so glad you didn't mean anything when you said you knew his style.” She paused, then added slowly, “I think he has quite a romantic air. And his eyes and that curving mustache and his beautiful manners remind me of the gentlemen I used to know when I was a little girl.”

“M'm—did you notice his hands?” said Miss Timmins; and she made a face at the thought of those pudgy paws and dirty nails.

“Yes; I noticed that they weren't very well kept,” said Anne Calhoun a little unhappily. “But then, English gentlemen are not so careful about having their hands manicured as American gentlemen.” She looked again at the frogs, then added wistfully, “Perhaps that customer won't buy these frogs after all and you can sell them to me.”

“I think he will,” said Miss Timmins.

Presently Anne Calhoun departed, after thanking Miss Timmins warmly for her kindness and saying that she would come again.

At the shop door Miss Timmins said casually, “I should like to know how you get on about Prince Sarrazin's frogs.”

“You shall. I'll come round and tell you,” said Anne Calhoun gratefully.

“And if you should ever see these frogs of mine again, don't say you saw them here. Just say they were in Farringdon's sale this morning, Tuesday the twenty-second, and fetched forty-one pounds.”

“I will—I will,” said Anne Calhoun, and walked down the street.

Miss Timmins looked after her and liked her. Anne was a gentle, simple creature; and under Miss Timmins' sophistication her heart was simple as well as of gold. She was pleased to be helping her.

She was also going to enjoy the procedure of Mr. Bosanquet. Anne Calhoun was going to be the subject of an intensive campaign. The business of getting those frogs from Italy and their romantic owner would be worked up till he had got her half crazy about them. But for the luck of her chancing on Miss Timmins in an amiable mood he would have swindled her with ease.

But what a fool the man was! The frogs he had seen on view at Farringdon's the morning before had suggested this ingenious swindle; he must have them; yet he had gone to the sale with only forty pounds in his pocket, when there hadn't been one chance in a hundred of getting them for that sum. He had not got them; he had yet to get them.

At ten o'clock next morning he came into the shop with a lordly air, and though unshaven, diffused about it an agreeable odor of beer. He twirled his mustache as he came.

He said in a lordly voice, “Ah, Miss Timmins, good morning. I've come on a little matter of business—those—ah—frogs you bought at Farringdon's. Do you care to part with them—at a reasonable profit?”

“Not particularly,” said Miss Timmins in about the least enthusiastic voice that ever issued from human lips.

Mr. Bosanquet gave his mustache another twirl and in an even more lordly voice said, “Ah—I'll give you five pounds for your bargain.”

“You won't,” said Miss Timmins with gentle decision.

A slight, rather surprised frown furrowed Mr. Bosanquet's narrow brow, and he said, “Well, seven pounds ten then.”

“Nor seven pounds ten,” said Miss Timmins in the same gentle voice.

The frown furrowed Mr. Bosanquet's brow more deeply. He raised his offer only to have it refused. He raised it again and yet again with the same result. Then with a rather excessive bitterness he asked Miss Timmins what she did want for the frogs.

In accents both dulcet and honeyed Miss Timmins said:

“Well, you know very well, Mr. Bosanquet, that that was the finest lot of hardstone frogs ever came into an English salesroom. I should think that it took the man who collected them ten years or so; and they're not to be got again. I want two hundred pounds for them.”

Mr. Bosanquet gasped; his fine black eyes assumed a sudden resemblance to the portholes of a small ship.

He murmured thickly and in accents of one who cannot believe his ears, “The girl's mad! Two hundred pounds! Nonsense! Such a price was never heard of!”

“You've just heard it,” Miss Timmins reminded him sweetly; and even more sweetly she added, “and it's the only price you will hear,”

It was the only price he did hear. But it was a long while before he could bring himself to believe that it was the only price he was going to hear. Then he went away raging.

Miss Timmins believed that he had gone to turn London upside down till he found two hundred pounds.

But she had to have eight frogs. She was not going to sell the green frog to Mr. Bosanquet. She drew her father from the parlor, in which he was studying with profound pleasure the last number of the Anglo-Israelite, and left him in charge of the shop. She went round to a friendly dealer, who had bought an agate frog at Christie's a few weeks before; he might still have it. He had; he let her have it for six pounds, It was not to be compared with any of the eight frogs she had; but it would serve.

She was sure that Mr. Bosanquet would quickly dig up the two hundred pounds, and she wished Lord Scredington to see the frogs, for they would delight him. But she took the receiver from the telephone with a certain trepidation, She never knew exactly what he would do, or rather she knew exactly what he would do—if he got the chance—but she did not know exactly what he would say. She rang him up and invited him to come to see them.

He said, “Darling, I'll fly to you at once—on the wings of love!”

She slapped the receiver back, scowling. She did dislike him; there was no doubt about it. But somehow, when, tall, slim, debonair and smiling, he came into the shop, she did not find herself disliking him nearly so much as she ought. She showed him the frogs and they delighted him. He said that he must have them.

“No; I can't let you have them,” she said. “I've promised them to someone else—if he can find the money.”

He banged both fists down on the counter hard and cried loudly:

“I knew it! I knew it! I knew, though I spoke so sweetly, when you rang me up, that you'd thought out some ingenious way of lacerating my feelings. You knew quite well that if I didn't have that brown frog life would never be the same again!”

“Yes; I knew you'd want that brown frog,” she said in callous accents. “But Bouncer Bosanquet has gone to dig up two hundred pounds to buy the eight.”

He cried out at the idea of the frogs going to that ruffian. But when she told him of the swindle afoot, he agreed that he must step aside and let that ruffian get his lesson.

Then he laughed and added:

“But two hundred! It's quite clear that your father is perfectly right and you are one of the lost tribes of Israel—by far the most dangerous of them too.”

Then he grew anxious and said that when Bosanquet's bubble burst he might cut up uncommonly rough. Miss Timmins said she did not care how rough he cut up.

“Of course you don't,” said Lord Scredington. “But all the same, I'd better be about when it does burst, to take him on for you. You'd like to have me about the shop for two or three days?”

“I should not,” said Miss Timmins with immense decision.

“If you were not so beautiful and so sweet I should tell you that you were a little beast,” said Lord Scredington coldly.

He did not leave her for some time, and contrived to say many charming things to her without ruffling her sensibilities, and before he went he induced her to promise to let him know when Mr. Bosanquet's bubble was due to burst.

The next morning Mr. Bosanquet entered the shop with a companion, rather paunchier, who gave the impression that he was lurking with a disquieting stealthiness behind the massive gold chain which lay across his lower bosom.

“Ah, good morning, Miss Timmins,” said Mr. Bosanquet almost in the rich voice of a satrap. “My brother—this is Miss Timmins, Hector—my brother and I have decided to buy those frogs—if you care to take a hundred and fifty for them.”

“I don't,” said Miss Timmins, surveying him and his brother with cold disfavor.

Mr. Bosanquet scowled very darkly and muttered something about grasping dispositions; then he said, “Let's have a look at them.”

“Why shouldn't we have a look at the money first?” said Miss Timmins with cold sweetness. “This is a cash transaction.”

The brothers hesitated, Albert furious, Hector startled, but evidently not greatly surprised.

Then Albert said, with splendid haughtiness and a magnificent twirl of his mustache, “My brother is not used to having his financial stability doubted.”

“He will be, if he goes into many deals with you,” said Miss Timmins in a pleasant conversational tone.

Albert ground his teeth and glared murder. Then he recovered himself and displayed with a flourish seven ten-pound notes. Hector hesitated; then he displayed thirteen ten-pound notes.

Miss Timmins opened the cabinet and set out the frogs.

Albert scanned them with an aloof and lofty air; then he started and said sharply, “But there was a green one among them!”

“Yes; but it hadn't enough work in it for a real collector. This one makes up the set better,” said Miss Timmins calmly, patting the eighth frog.

Satisfied, Albert accepted the explanation with a grunt.

But Hector exclaimed in affright, “'Ere, I say, Bertie, they're very small. Is this all we git for two 'undred pound?”

Neither his accent nor his aitches matched his name.

“Why, they're life-size,” said Albert.

“I thought they'd be bigger nor that,” said Hector disconsolately.

“You don't understand these things,” snapped his brother; then he said to Miss Timmins in lordly accents, “We'll take them,”

With a finely prodigal air he pushed his seven notes across the counter. After a little hesitation Hector pushed his thirteen across with the air of one pushing his lifeblood. Miss Timmins wrote the receipt and handed it to Hector. Albert drew the frogs toward him.

“Stop!” said Miss Timmins imperiously. “You're not going to put beautiful things like that into your dirty pocket!”

Albert stopped, glaring. He drew out a handkerchief about a fortnight old and wiped his brow. Miss Timmins wrapped each frog in tissue paper, put them in a cardboard box, handed them to Hector and said, “There you are.”

“Yes, we are,” said Albert in a tone of deep meaning, as he drew himself up to his full height and fiercely twirled his mustache. “And now I'm going to tell you that the price you made me pay for those frogs is an imposition—a gross imposition—and to a fellow dealer too!”

“You wouldn't give it unless you were going to make a jolly good profit,” said Miss Timmins, quite unruffled. “And you may be a dealer, but you're not a fellow dealer. I'm square, and you're a stupid crook, you know.”

Mr. Bosanquet gasped and blinked painfully.

Then he snorted and said in a terrible voice, “You seem to think, my girl, that because you're a young women you can make libelous statements about me with impunity. You never made a greater mistake in your life. You'll hear from my solicitor about this.”

“Shall I?” said Miss Timmins sweetly. “When?”

“By the first post tomorrow morning,” said Mr. Bosanquet, still terribly.

“Right,” said Miss Timmins cheerfully. “Tell him not to miss the last post tonight.”

Mr. Bosanquet did not say that he would tell him; he did not say that he would not; he left loftily. Hector shambled out after him, hugging the box of frogs with a pained air. Their size still troubled him; he felt that, at the price, they should at least be as large as guinea pigs. Miss Timmins gazed upon the departing brothers with the quiet, filling satisfaction of one who is not only about to get a good deal of her own back but is also already on velvet to the tune of one hundred and fifty-nine pounds.

She did not see that she could do more than she was doing for Anne Calhoun; she felt that for her to confront Mr. Bosanquet, outraged in his deepest instincts by being found out, would go a long way to prevent her being finally swindled over some other five-thousand-dollar masterpiece. She awaited the opening of the Bosanquet campaign in a pleased expectancy.

She had not long to wait. At 4:30, as she had promised, Anne Calhoun came, rather jubilant with a telegram she had just received. It ran:

“Agent cables Prince Sarrazin consents to consider your offer. Bosanquet.”

After reading it with a queer smile, Miss Timmins again awoke doubt in her mind by telling her to take care of it.

The first post next morning did not bring Miss Timmins a letter from Mr. Bosanquet's solicitor, but it brought Anne Calhoun a letter from Mr. Bosanquet himself. He began it with his usual courtliness, “Dear Lady,” and wrote that he considered the mere fact that Prince Sarrazin had consented to consider her offer very promising indeed; that it was very fortunate that he happened to be a personal friend of the prince, for he was convinced that had his agent in Siena brought that offer from anyone not vouched for by him, that proud and haughty royalty would have rejected it with the cold scorn of the Italian aristocrat.

Miss Timmins again knew the style; but she did not say so.

“But you haven't made any offer. He's getting these frogs on approval, isn't he?” she said.

Anne said that she had certainly not made any offer, but merely accepted Mr. Bosanquet's suggestion that he should get the frogs for her to see. Miss Timmins made her write to him then and there that she had made no offer and would not buy the frogs unless she liked them. She made her make a copy of this letter, and initialed it. Then she warned her earnestly against entertaining high expectations of the frogs, because she was nearly sure that when she saw them she would not pay five thousand dollars for them.

That afternoon Anne Calhoun brought another telegram. The campaign was well under way. It ran:

“Prince Sarrazin still considering your offer. Agent very hopeful. Bosanquet.”

The enthusiastic fellow must that morning have received Anne Calhoun's letter putting on record the fact that she had made no offer, but evidently he considered it unimportant.

Next morning came a great advance, a telegram which ran:

“Prince Sarrazin accepts your offer. Bosanquet.”

Miss Timmins had expected him to call, thrilling with enthusiasm, on Anne Calhoun. But he did not. She took it that he kept away from her because he did not wish to go into the matter of whether she had definitely offered five thousand dollars for the frogs. Two mornings later there was a slight withdrawal, a letter in which he said that things had so far gone very well—marvelously; but Anne was not to make sure even now of getting the frogs, for, though he had made such arrangements as had made failure practically impossible, they might fail to get past the Italian customhouse. It increased Anne's excitement.

The next morning there was another advance, a telegram:

“Objects safely out of Italy. Most gratifying. Bosanquet.”

Anne was immensely excited.

Next morning came a letter of unrestrained jubilation. He congratulated her on the splendid luck she was having, and declared that it had been ordained from the beginning of time that these unsurpassable masterpieces were to be hers.

In the afternoon came a telegram:

“Frogs arrived Paris. Bosanquet.”

That evening came another:

“Agent crossing tonight. Frogs will be yours at eleven A.M. tomorrow. “Bosanquet.”

Anne was thrilled; in her excitement she had a poor night.

The next morning came a letter in which he congratulated her on the successful termination of an affair of the first importance and her extraordinary luck in chancing upon the one man in England who could carry it through in record time. In a postscript he added that, owing doubtless to the fact that the Italian nobility had so often been tricked by swindlers, the prince had made the stipulation that he was to deliver the frogs only for cash down, and it would facilitate matters if she had the five thousand dollars ready at her hotel when he brought them to her.

Anne Calhoun came with this letter to Miss Timmins at the very height of excitement. The cumulative effect of the telegrams and letters was that she had formed the impression that Europe had been standing still to watch the passage of these unsurpassable masterpieces from Prince Sarrazin to herself. They had come to seem to her cheap at five thousand dollars; she had called on her way to her bank to get the money.

As she looked at her excited face and listened to her jubilant and enthusiastic words, Miss Timmins' mind misgave her. Anne seemed fairly hypnotized and Bosanquet might yet bluff or bully the five thousand dollars out of her. She must be more open with her.

“Look here, you mustn't have that five thousand dollars at the hotel,“ she said firmly. “It won't be safe. I'm certain that this business is a swindle—that if there is any Prince Sarrazin these won't be his frogs.”

Anne Calhoun, startled and astounded, stared at her with her mouth open.

“I wish I could be somewhere handy when that beast brings them,” added Miss Timmins, frowning as she cudgeled her brains for a way of being at hand, but unseen. “But if he sees me it will spoil everything. It'll soften the jolt, I mean.”

Anne protested that Mr. Bosanquet could not be trying to swindle her; that, in view of his telegrams and letters, it was impossible. Miss Timmins shrugged her shoulders and said no more. Then, weakening, Anne said that she had taken the sitting room, into which her bedroom opened, and Miss Timmins could overhear the whole interview from that bedroom.

“I will,” said Miss Timmins. “What's the number of the sitting room?”

Anne told her. At once she rang up Lord Scredington, found that he was out, and left a message that the frogs would be delivered at eleven o'clock that morning at Room 127, a certain hotel, Bedford Square. Then she made the excited Anne walk all the way back to the hotel by way of calming her nerves.

At 10:55 Miss Timmins went into the bedroom. At 10:56, the brothers Bosanquet, clad in their best and wearing also the pleased and excited air of men engaged in an important and profitable undertaking, began to mount the stairs to Room 127. Hector still carried the frogs.

Halfway up the stairs the brothers paused to take breath, and Albert said bitterly, “Look here, Ned; you're here by no wish of mine. I've told you twenty times I can do the job much better without you.”

“And I've told you, Bertie, oftener nor that, that I'm not goin' to lose sight of you till I've got my share of the thousand quid. You've let me down too hoften for me to take any chances,” said Hector, coldly stubborn.

“Well, all I say is, don't you go and spoil everything by opening your mouth. You can't bear in mind for two seconds after you've opened it that you're Hector Bosanquet and not any longer Edward Binns, so keep it shut and don't give the whole show away,” said Albert fiercely; and he resumed the ascent.

At 10:59 Lord Scredington entered the lobby of the hotel, asked for Miss Calhoun, Room 127, and began to mount the stairs leisurely. He could not, he thought, be needed for at least five minutes.

Albert Bosanquet knocked firmly on the door of Room 127 and, smiling triumphantly, entered with his most imposing air. Anne Calhoun rose; he strode to her majestically, took her hand, squeezed it, smiling upon her with loyal affection, and said in a hushed, impressive voice, “The luckiest woman in England! How are you?”

He loosed her hand, waved his toward Hector, and said splendidly, “My brother Hector—the bearer of the masterpieces.”

Hector presented a flabby, clammy hand; Anne shook it and said that she was pleased to meet him.

Albert took the box from his reluctant hands, set it on the table, rapped it with his knuckles and said impressively, “A king's ransom.” He beamed gallantly on Anne Calhoun and added, “You lucky woman—as fortunate as you must be attractive to those who really know you.”

His manner, his loyal eyes, his jubilant voice, all combined to sweep from Anne Calhoun's mind the base suspicions with which Miss Timmins had filled it.

And the box; the brown paper in which it was wrapped was stamped in half a dozen places with blue, red and black stamps—evidently the stamps of the customhouses it had passed through. They settled the matter.

Talking quickly and enthusiastically about her astonishing luck, Mr. Bosanquet cut the string, pulled off the paper and opened the box. He took out a frog wrapped in tissue paper, unwrapped it and handed it to her.

“Yours at last!” he said with a magnificent sigh of relief and satisfaction.

Anne Calhoun, awed by the greatness of the event, took the frog with trembling fingers—the treasure of a prince! She looked at it with eyes that for some seconds could not see it. Then they cleared and saw it with a growing distinctness. They opened wider and wider; she gasped faintly and nearly dropped the masterpiece; then her parted lips closed and slowly set in a thin, straight line.

In two seconds Mr. Bosanquet was all over that frog, explaining its quality and its beauty, eloquently, with passion, dithyrambic; but he did not bring home its beauty to Anne Calhoun with nearly the force that the quieter Miss Timmins had done the first time she saw it; his panegyric was not born of the same sincere delight in it. Besides, other feelings, not excited by the frog itself, entered into Anne Calhoun's second study of it.

The second frog he handed to her removed any faint hope she might have had that the first frog of Prince Sarrazin was a replica of the frog of Miss Timmins. The second was the brown frog on which Miss Timmins had dwelt longest. Anne's eyes began to shine with a queer light. It was not the light of pleasure.

As Mr. Bosanquet took each frog from the box he said with rich reverence, “Another unsurpassed masterpiece of another unsurpassed master,” and again spread himself. He spread himself over those frogs as he had never spread himself over a work of art before; there had never been so much to gain by it; never had his fancy been more fertile, his invention richer. He saw that he had Anne Calhoun dazed, spellbound, hypnotized. She was swallowing everything he told her. What a man he was! And how he despised her! The ideal mug!

She said not a word till she set down the eighth frog on the table; indeed, she could hardly have done so, since Mr. Bosanquet was saying everything.

Then, with a curious dry distinctness, she said, “But I've seen these frogs before. They were sold at Farringdon's salesrooms on Tuesday the twenty-second for two hundred dollars.”

At the sound of her voice Miss Timmins knew that she had been wrong in supposing that she could ever be bluffed out of five thousand—or even fifteen—dollars by Bouncer Bosanquet.

Slowly his flabbergasted brain grasped Anne Calhoun's meaning. For twenty seconds or longer he sat paralyzed.

In his immense emotion, Hector, crouching forward in his chair, with his eyes starting from his head, assumed the very appearance of a frog himself; and a thin whine issued from his twitching lips: “E's 'ad me agyne!”

Albert recovered; he rose to his feet with a reassuring smile, his honest eyes limpid with a noble candor, and said in accents ringing with veracity:

“You are making a mistake, dear lady, a quite natural mistake. You do not understand the great Chinese tradition. For thousands of years they have been carving frogs, father and son and grandson, generation after generation, without departing a millimeter from the tradition. The greatest artist sticks to it; only experts like Prince Sarrazin and myself recognize his greatness. The frogs you saw at Farringdon's may have been like these, very like them, perhaps. I did not see them myself, but I am certain—I would stake my reputation as a connoisseur on it—they were very inferior.”

He beamed upon her, frankly setting her right, reassuring.

“They are the same frogs, and you can take them away,” said Anne Calhoun.

Mr. Bosanquet evidently could not believe his ears; he looked hurt and amazed; then his face slowly darkened and grew terrible; he appeared to swell; he said in a cold, stern, scornful voice:

“I see your game, my good woman. I might have known that these magnificent masterpieces would not appeal to the crude taste of a benighted American female. But it is no use your trying to get out of your bargain. I might allow you to trick me; but I will never allow you to trick my friend Prince Sarrazin. The five thousand dollars, woman! The five thousand dollars at once!”

He looked magnificent; he felt magnificent, righteously menacing, compelling, irresistible; he rapped the table in a very threatening manner. Then the bedroom door opened and out came Miss Timmins, smiling unpleasantly.

She said, “That will be about enough from you, Bosanquet. Clear out!”

His almost majestic wrath fell from his face like a mask; he dithered. Then slowly real fury took possession of him and convulsed his features.

He shouted: “Now I know where I arm! A conspiracy! You two women have conspired together to get two hundred pounds from me by a trick! I'm going straight to Scotland Yard! I'll jail the pair of you!”

Miss Timmins laughed. There was a knock at the door and Lord Scredington stood on the threshold. He had been leaning patiently against the doorpost till he heard the voice of Miss Timmins. The Bouncer's shout informed him that the time for intervention had come.

He bowed to Miss Calhoun and said, “Please forgive my intrusion. But I was told that there was a small sale of gold bricks going on here and I thought that there might be one for me.”

Mr. Bosanquet dropped back onto a chair with one grunt of despair and plunged into speechless gloom.

Hector interposed feverishly; in carrying accents he said:

“'Ere, 'ere, why all this ill feeling about a trifle like this? It's only business. Suppose we drop all this talk about five thousand dollars an' come to brass tacks. What about two 'undred and fifty pounds for the eight frogs? What if they ain't Prince Sarrazin's? They're first-class frogs; the best as ever come over. What about two 'undred an' fifty pound?”

“What about fifty, without the two hundred?” said Miss Timmins heartlessly.

“I wouldn't give you a nickel for the eight!” said Anne Calhoun fiercely. “I wouldn't have anything to do with you! You're just two loathsome crooks!”

“Now, you two fellows—out you go before you're helped!” said Lord Scredington.

They seemed to have heard tones like his before. Hector hastily scooped the frogs into the box; Albert rose feebly, made a feeble effort to stalk loftily to the door, feebly twirling his mustache.

As he followed him out Hector gazed round on those unsympathetic faces and whined tearfully, “'E's 'ad me agyne. 'E always 'as me.”

Lord Scredington rather cut short Anne Calhoun's thanks for his intervention at the awkward moment, and hurried away. He caught up the brothers Bosanquet. Anne began to thank Miss Timmins, Miss Timmins would not hear of being thanked. She said that she had long wanted to score off that rogue Albert Bosanquet, and she had done it. But Anne insisted on thanking her at length, and insisted that she must help her, at a pleasing fee, to find the genuine masterpiece. They went straight out to look for it. Later they lunched at the Savoy.

Miss Timmins returned to the shop in a pleasant temper. She had not been back long when in came Lord Scredington.

With an air of immense triumph, and holding it out for her to see, he said, “I've got the brown frog—the finest frog that ever came out of China, Beulah darling!”

That tore it.

Miss Timmins scowled upon him; she said in icy accents, “I don't think it's quite the best frog that ever came out of China, I think that my green one is better. And I compared them very carefully before I chose it.”

“Your green one?” he said sharply, taken aback.

Miss Timmins moved quietly behind the protective counter. Then she drew the green frog from her pocket and handed it to him. He looked at it earnestly, he compared it with his brown frog. Then he swallowed an ejaculation. Then he set both hands on the counter, and leaning over it, said in a terrible voice:

“One of these days I shall come round with a special license and drag you round to the nearest registrar's and marry you—not just because I adore you so passionately, but I know it's the only way of geting that green frog!”