“Then old Saumergue asked if he might telephone—I suppose he’d reached his limit. As he went out, I noticed that Süsslein went after him. He’s pretty slick, and I guessed he meant to pick up what he could outside the telephone box. “But, my gracious! in two minutes my little friend was back in no end of a way. Why, the man was so white I thought he was ill! He started telling me a long story about old Saumergue buying in the ikon for some Russian family where it was an heirloom, that it was really a rather inferior specimen, and a lot of stuff like that. That’s the line of talk dealers always hand out when they want to shoo you off a piece. “But it didn’t go any with me, Major Okewood. I wanted that little old ikon, and I meant to have it. But do you think what I wanted mattered? Say, for about five minutes that little Jew never let up knocking that holy picture, saying the price was ridiculous, and how I must be plumb crazy to bid four hundred guineas for a thing that wasn’t worth above forty! “As Hermann picked up his hammer again, I just waved the dealer aside. That old skate and I went at it once more. Everybody in the place was crowded round us now, sort of in two camps—you know the way it is—and it was so quiet you could almost hear a pin drop, I guess. “‘May I say four hundred and fifty guineas? It’s a lovely piece,’ Hermann calls out in his soft voice, and the old man nods. He was standing up, very serious, blinking through his spectacles, but I could see his hands shaking with excitement. “‘Five hundred!’ I said from my place just under the desk—they had given me a Heppelwhite chair from the Zossenberg sale next week to sit in. “‘And twenty-five!’ says the old man with a kind of gasp. “‘Fifty?’ asks Hermann, looking at me. I nodded. “Süsslein pulled my sleeve. ‘Let him have the ikon!’ he whispered. ‘It don’t matter any to you, a common old thing like that! For God’s sake, let him have it, Miss Maxwell!’ “I shook my head. “‘Six hundred!’ I said. “‘Any advance on six hundred?’ asks Hermann, and brings his hammer down pretty sharply. ‘Six hundred guineas I’m bid. For the first time! It’s getting late, and we all want to go home, I’m sure. For the second time . . .’ “‘Seven hundred!’ says the old Frenchman faintly. “All this time Süsslein was whispering in my ear. The man was all worked up. ‘You’ve got to let him have it,’ he kept on saying. ‘Take my advice, Miss Maxwell, and let the thing be. It’ll bring you no luck! Believe me, I know what I’m saying!’ His voice was shaking and his eyes were starting out of his head. “But I meant to have that ikon, though, by this, the price was ’way beyond my figure. The end came quick. “‘Shall we say eight hundred?’ asks Hermann. “I nodded. With that the old man turned on his heel and walked straight out of the place. The ikon was mine.