“Oh, I shan’t be over hard on the buyer, American or otherwise. You see, it stands this way, Mr Dillet--if I knew just a bit more about the pedigree----” “Or just a bit less,” Mr Dillet put in. “Ha, ha! you will have your joke, Sir. No, but as I was saying, if I knew just a little more than what I do about the piece--though anyone can see for themselves it’s a genuine thing, every last corner of it, and there’s not been one of my men allowed to so much as touch it since it came into the shop--there’d be another figure in the price I’m asking.” “And what’s that: five and twenty?” “Multiply that by three and you’ve got it, Sir. Seventy-five’s my price.” “And fifty’s mine,” said Mr Dillet. The point of agreement was, of course, somewhere between the two, it does not matter exactly where--I think sixty guineas. But half-an-hour later the object was being packed, and within an hour Mr Dillet had called for it in his car and driven away. Mr Chittenden, holding the cheque in his hand, saw him off from the door with smiles, and returned, still smiling, into the parlour where his wife was making the tea. He stopped at the door. “It’s gone,” he said. “Thank God for that!” said Mrs Chittenden, putting down the teapot. “Mr Dillet, was it?” “Yes, it was.” “Well, I’d sooner it was him than another.” “Oh, I don’t know, he ain’t a bad feller, my dear.” “May be not, but in my opinion he’d be none the worse for a bit of a shake up.” “Well, if that’s your opinion, it’s my opinion he’s put himself into the way of getting one. Anyhow, we shan’t have no more of it, and that’s something to be thankful for.” And so Mr and Mrs Chittenden sat down to tea. And what of Mr Dillet and of his new acquisition? What it was, the title of this story will have told you. What it was like, I shall have to indicate as well as I can. There was only just room enough for it in the car, and Mr Dillet had to sit with the driver: he had also to go slow, for though the rooms of the Doll’s House had all been stuffed carefully with soft cotton-wool, jolting was to be avoided, in view of the immense number of small objects which thronged them; and the ten-mile drive was an anxious time for him, in spite of all the precautions he insisted upon. At last his front door was reached, and Collins, the butler, came out. “Look here, Collins, you must help me with this thing--it’s a delicate job. We must get it out upright, see? It’s full of little things that mustn’t be displaced more than we can help. Let’s see, where shall we have it? (After a pause for consideration). Really, I think I shall have to put it in my own room, to begin with at any rate. On the big table--that’s it.” It was conveyed--with much talking--to Mr Dillet’s spacious room on the first floor, looking out on the drive. The sheeting was unwound from it, and the front thrown open, and for the next hour or two Mr Dillet was fully occupied in extracting the padding and setting in order the contents of the rooms.