"That is precisely what I propose to find out, and if they'll take anything less than thirty pounds it's ours. In the meantime," I added, "we'll dope the poor old what-not with furniture cream and see about driving it to market." There are two accepted methods of dealing at old furniture shops. The first is to approach them, well-groomed, be-ringed and perfumed, smoking a jewelled gasper and entering the shop with a circular movement of the arm to expose the gold wrist-watch that _will_ crawl up the sleeve at wrong moments, and to ask in a commanding voice, "How much is the--ah--oak-dresser--what?" The presiding genius (and being a dealer he is usually a genius), who had really ticketed the article thirty pounds, approaches it, removes the ticket by a little sleight-of-hand and says, "Thirty-eight guineas, Sir," without a blush (the dealer who blushes is hounded from the ring). This method of dealing is direct action of the most dangerous kind. The other method, and the one I most usually adopt, I can best illustrate by detailing my interview with the proprietor of Smalley's on the occasion when I went dressering. I sidled into the shop in garments carefully selected from my pre-wardrobe and wearing a vacant expression. Picking up a piece of china I examined it carefully, turning it upside down, as though to search for a pottery mark, which I probably should never have recognised. "H'm, not bad," I said. "One of the best bits of Dresden I've ever had," said the dealer. "I want----" "Ah, German," I said, putting the thing down hurriedly as though it might be mined. "It may be a good piece, but--what is the price of that brass fender?" "Seven-ten, old Dutch and a bargain," said the dealer laconically. "But probably wouldn't fit the fireplace in my mind. Though," I added to myself, "it might fit the one in our dining-room." I thought it about time to notice the dresser, not to attempt to buy it yet--oh dear no, but merely to fire the first shot in the campaign as it were. "What kind of a dresser do you call this?" I said. "Slightly moth-eaten, isn't it?" "That's nothing; merely age. It's Welsh," he added, "and a beauty. I wish I could get hold of more like it. Look at those legs; I'll guarantee you won't----Excuse me, Sir." An immaculately dressed individual had entered the shop, and the gentleman trading as Smalley called an assistant to serve him. By the time he returned to me I had wandered far into the recesses of the emporium and was busily examining a walnut stool with a woolwork seat. "You haven't one like this in oak, I suppose? This one," I said, "would hardly suite my suit. That sounds wrong, but you apprehend my meaning." "I haven't," he said simply. I could see that he was tiring rapidly, but wasn't absolutely ripe for plucking.