Sube Cane Part 37

"Too much?" cried Sube. "How do you know it's too much? We haven't told you what we wanted yet?"

The second-hand man shook his head many times as he repeated slowly, "Altogedder too mooch."

"We'll sell it awful cheap," said Sube anxiously.

The buyer continued to shake his head.

"We'll sell it for about half what it's worth."

Still the buyer shook his head.

"We'll sell it for less than that!" cried Sube in desperation. "We'll sell it for anything! Make us an offer!"

That was enough for the representative of Mose Smolenski; now he _knew_ that something was wrong. "I make you no offers," he said, moving towards the door; "y't'ink I vanta get ar-r-rested?"

Sube drew back in astonishment. "Arrested?" he gasped. "What for?"

The second-hand man shrugged his shoulders. "Vell, I donno. Mebbe you buy it. Mebbe you steal it. I donno. I make no offers for dis t'ings"--he waved a knotted hand towards the interior of the barn--"but mebbe I buy dem shoes y'got on; how mooch y'vant for dem?"

With conscious pride Sube glanced down at his feet and replied, "They're not for sale. It's the only pair I got that fits me."

The second-hand man turned away with another shrug of his rounded shoulders. "Vell, if your popper or your mommer _he_ say all right, vy, den ve talk pizness."

Sube was very much put out. "My popper and my mommer ain't got a dern thing to do with this prope'ty," he growled. "It's mine, I tell you!"

"Vell, goo'-bye. Mebbe I come see you some odder day," said the second-hand man smiling pleasantly through his spa.r.s.e beard as he started down the driveway.

The boys were still looking helplessly at each other when he climbed into his ramshackle wagon and drove away. At last Sube burst out angrily, "He thought we stole it! What do you know about that?"

"I know we got all this stuff on our hands," muttered Gizzard, "and I wisht it was in Halifax!"

"But he thought we _stole_ it!" Sube persisted. "As if _we'd_ steal an'thing."

"We didn't steal it," Gizzard agreed; "but here it _is_, and what are we goin' to do with it? That's what I wanta know."

"We'll do something with it all right," Sube declared sullenly. "That ol' second-hand man ain't the only one who can buy things."

"Well, what'll we do with it then?" asked Gizzard.

Sube made no immediate answer. He didn't know himself. But he felt an idea coming, and he struggled hard to reach into the infinite and grasp it.

And in the meantime, at an afternoon bridge given by Mrs. Prentice Y.

Prentice, Sube's mother had heard for the first time of the Belgian relief work being carried on in her name.

"Oh, it can't be possible," she said; "somebody must have made a mistake. Of course, I am thoroughly in sympathy with the Belgians, you know; every one is. But, really, I haven't been able to find a moment to devote to any such work."

"You haven't!" called Mrs. Potter from an adjoining table. "Why, my dear! Your name was distinctly mentioned at our house. Celeste came straight from the door and said that the messengers from Mrs. Cane had come to see what I could give to the suffering Belgians. And I sent you the most gorgeous silk slumber-robe, one that I picked up in Paris. Do you mean to say that you never got it?"

Mrs. Cane was quite overcome. "Why, I never heard of such a thing!" she exclaimed. "Who could have done such an underhanded trick?"

"Some swindlers, without a doubt," Mrs. Rice put in. "Just to think of making those poor Belgians the excuse for a lot of fraud. Why, I gave them a beautiful pair of Mr. Rice's shoes, broadcloth tops, you know. I don't know what he'll say when he finds they're gone; and if he should ever discover that the Belgians didn't get them after all--well, I'd never hear the last of it! And you know that Mrs. Van Auken who lives next door--of course you don't _know_ her; I don't myself; but you know who she is--well, I saw her handing out one of her husband's race-track plaid suits. _That_ ought to be easy to trace!"

At every table Mrs. Cane found one or more victims of the fraud, and little else was talked of wherever she was. When the party finally broke up she was in a high state of agitation.

"You're all upset, dear," said Mrs. Potter who had come up to her in the dressing room. "You must let me take you home in my new motor. The ride will brace you up wonderfully."

"Oh, but that would take you out of your way," remonstrated Mrs. Cane as unconvincingly as possible.

"But, my dear! What is a block or two to an imported motor?" Mrs. Potter waved her fat hand deprecatingly. "Nothing; abs'lutely nothing! And Francois controls that sixty horsepower motor as if it were a Shetland pony. He's wonderful!"

And thus it happened that Mrs. Cane and Mrs. Rice, and one or two others who lived in the same neighborhood were handed into Mrs. Potter's purring limousine by the much-liveried Francois, and rolled off majestically amid the ten-inch upholstery.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE AUCTIONEER

"I can't understand how any one would DARE to use my name in such an unwarranted way," murmured Mrs. Cane as the limousine got under way.

"Oh, my _dear_!" exclaimed Mrs. Potter. "They dare do anything these days. If they have stopped at merely using your name, you are to be congratulated. They have probably forged your signature and exhibited your photograph all over town."

The idea was very distasteful to Mrs. Cane. "I should hate to think of those awful men--they _were_ men, weren't they?"

"I didn't see them myself," replied Mrs. Potter, "but it seems to me that Celeste said they were boys."

Mrs. Cane started perceptibly. "Boys?" she gasped.

"Why, yes; I'm sure that's what she said," returned Mrs. Potter. "But if you want to trace them, that silk slumber-robe ought to be a great help. There isn't another like it in this country. Picked it up in Paris, you know; soft, clingy silk crepe in large checks of black and white, and the most gorgeous panne velvet border!"

This opportunity was too good for Mrs. Rice to overlook. She had personally handed out the lemon-colored shoes, and had recognized the solicitors beyond peradventure. "If you should inquire around among the victims, dearie," she drawled out with carefully stimulated lack of interest, "you might find somebody who could identify them."

At that moment the car drew up at the curb and came to a stop. Mrs. Cane glanced out and exclaimed, "What! Home already!-- But what is the crowd?

Oh, I hope our house isn't on fire!"

As she struggled hurriedly out of the limousine without waiting for the a.s.sistance of Francois, the other pa.s.sengers craned their necks to see what the excitement was. And as they looked, a startling checkered device that was instantly recognized as Mrs. Potter's slumber-robe fluttered out over the heads of the jostling mult.i.tude, where it waved proudly for a moment, and was then gathered back into the hands of an individual standing on the top of a rudely constructed counter about which the crowd was cl.u.s.tered.

And as he spread the silken folds over his arm so that all might see it to better advantage, he began to cry out in the loud voice of an auctioneer:

"One dollar, one dollar, one dollar--one dollar, one dollar, one dollar--I am offered only one dollar for this be-e-eautiful garment that a certain rich lady--you all know her--bought in the large city of Rochester; I am offered only one dollar, one dollar, one dollar--she told me herself only this morning that it cost FIVE!--and yet I am offered only one dollar, one dollar, one dollar, ONE DOLLAR!--I will put it back in stock before I will sell it for such a ridic'lous figger. You don't know what you're missin'."

He slung it on a line stretched above his head, and turning to a corps of a.s.sistants who were waiting on a clamoring public (composed of neighborhood domestics and Italians from across the railroad tracks), sang out:

"Hand up something else, men! We must slaughter this stock to aid the sufferin' Belgiums! We must aid the dessolute Belgiums!"--and he held up a pink "wrapper."--"Now, what am I offered to start this to aid the dessolute--"

The crowd parted, and fell back on either side, opening up a pa.s.sage for a woman in white who went rapidly towards the counter, in front of which she came to a stop.