Otto took the bundle and loosened the roll again. “I got a little girl, Beesving--dot was her dog make such foolishness--who likes dese t'ings. But dot is not business, for I doan sell it again once I gif it to her. I joost put it around her shoulders for a New Year's gift. Maybe if you--” He re-examined it closely, especially the tear, which had partly yielded to Lady Barbara's deft fingers and tired eyes. “Vell, I tell you vot I do, I gif you tventy tollars.” “That, I am afraid, will not answer my purpose,” said Dalton. “Perhaps, however, you will loan me thirty dollars on it and hold the lace for a week or so, and I will pay you back thirty-five when some money that is due me comes in?” Otto looked at him from under his bushy eyebrows. “Ve don't do dot kind of business. If I buy--I buy. If I sell--I sell. Sometimes I pay more as a t'ing is vorth. Sometimes I pay less. I have a expert vid me who knows vat dis is vorth, but he is busy vid a customer on de next floor, and I doan sent for him. If you vant de tventy tollars you can have it. If you doan, den take avay de lace. I got a lot of t'ings to do more as to talk about it. Ven you see Blobbs, you tell him vat I say.” Dalton's mind worked rapidly. To take the money would clean off his debt and leave him a margin which he might treble before midnight. “Give me the money,” he said. “It is not one-third of its value, but I see that it is all I can do.” Otto smiled--the smile of a man who had hit the thing at which he aimed--felt in his inside pocket, drew out a great flat pocketbook, and counted out the bills. Dalton swept them up as a winner at baccarat sweeps up his coin, apparently without counting them, stuffed the crumpled bank-notes into his pocket, and started for the door. Half-way down the long shop he halted opposite a sideboard laden with old silver and glass and, to show that he was not in a hurry, paused for an instant, picking up a cut-glass decanter with a silver top, remarking casually, as he laid it back, “Like one I have at home,” continuing his inspection by holding aloft a pipe-stem glass, to see the color the better.