AN ART SHOP IN GREENWICH VILLAGE By Ray Cummings The little shop was dimly lighted—a lurid red glow at one side and a faint amber radiance from above. For a moment I stood looking around uncertainly—at the slovenly display-cases and tables, the unframed paintings on the walls, and the long shelves crowded with curios. “Perhaps something in particular the _señor_ would wish?” suggested the little old man ingratiatingly. I glanced back into the black shadow that shrouded the farther end of the room, and then turned to meet the snakelike little eyes that were roving over my figure appraisingly. I shook my head. “No,” I said; “nothing in particular.” The little old man straightened his bent back with an effort, reaching a skinny hand toward the shelf above his head. “The _señor_ plays chess, perhaps?” His hand held a little white figure carved in ivory; he dusted it off against the faded black of his coat-sleeve. “A wonderful game, _señor_. This set is of the Moors—they carve superb in ivory, the Moors. Perhaps in the London Museum of Victoria and Albert the _señor_ has seen the work before?” “No,” I said, and moved away down the length of the table. “I lived in Spain a year. Your place interests me.” He laid aside the ivory figure and followed me down the room with feeble steps; I noticed then that one of his feet dragged as he walked. It was peculiarly unpleasant—indeed the whole personality of this decrepit little old man seemed unpleasant and repulsive. I stopped in the red glow of an iron lantern that hung from a bracket upon the wall. “I lived in Spain a year,” I repeated. “That is why, when I saw your sign, I stopped in to look around.” He stood beside me, looking up into my face, his head shaking with the palsy of old age, his eyes gleaming into mine. “In _España_ you have lived, eh?” The thin, cracked treble of his voice came from lips that parted in a toothless smile. “That is good—very good, _señor_.” “In Granada,” I added briefly. He put a shaking hand upon my arm; involuntarily I drew back from his touch. “The _señor_ has lived in Granada! My birthplace, _señor_—yet for fifteen years have I been here in your New York. Fifteen years, selling here the treasures of _España_. You have lived in Granada—ah, then, _señor_, the Alhambra you have seen?” “Yes,” I said, “of course.” He picked up a little vase from the table before us. The fire of patriotism that for an instant had lighted his face was gone; cupidity marked it instead. “The _señor_ perhaps is interested in ceramics?” His voice was almost a whine. “The great Alhambra vase—greatest example of the ceramic art of the Moors in all the world—here is its miniature, _señor_. See—gazelles in cream and golden luster upon a blue field.