"You will. I’m going to put a little chipped bit of the best on your toilet table. You just squint at it twenty times a day for one year, and you’ll know something. That’s what I’m doing with the earlier stuff, which is more difficult to be sure of, because it doesn’t look so good. I wouldn’t trust my judgment to buy it. That’s Tomlin’s job." Susan frowned. "I don’t like Mr. Tomlin, Joe." "Never asked you to like him, but we can learn a lot from Tomlin. See? He’s an expert upon Chinese and Japanese porcelain and lac. We’ve got to suck his brains." "Ugh!" said Susan. During these first few weeks she displayed great aptitude as a saleswoman. Her face, so ingenuous in its expression, her soft voice, her pretty figure attracted customers. The price of every article in the shop was marked in letters which she could turn into figures. But this price was a "fancy one," what Quinney termed a "top-notcher." Susan was instructed to take a third less. Quinney trained her to answer awkward questions, to make a pretty picture of ignorance, to pose effectively as the inexperienced wife keeping the shop during the absence of her husband. He had said upon the morning of the grand opening of _Quinneys’_, "I don’t want you to tell lies, Sue." "I wouldn’t for the world," she replied. He pinched her chin, chuckling derisively. "I know you wouldn’t; but I don’t want you to tell all the truth neither." "What do you mean?" "This oak now. Me and you know it’s new, but if a customer tells you it’s old, don’t contradict him. ’Twouldn’t be polite. All you know about it is this—your clever hubby picked it up in France, in Brittany. See?" She asked anxiously, "It won’t be acting a lie, dear?" "Not a bit of it! By Gum, Sue, I’m as proud of that conscience of yours as I am of that jar. Not a flaw in either." After this she played her part so artlessly that Joe chuckled half a dozen times a day. She tackled the Bishop—alone. Quinney saw the great man approaching and told Susan. She wished to bolt, but Quinney disappeared instead, listening to the duologue that followed. The Bishop stared at the fine wares from Tomlin’s, whipped out his spectacles, and entered, smiling at Susan’s blushing face. "Good-morning, my lord!" "Good-morning, Mrs. Quinney. May I look at some of these tempting things?" He looked at what was best amongst the porcelain sent down by Tomlin, displaying knowledge of the different periods. Then he said courteously, "As this is my first visit, I must buy something for luck. What is the price of that small jar with the _prunus_ decoration? If it is within my means——" He paused, gravely expectant, but Susan divined somehow what was flitting through his mind; the outrageous prices exacted by old Quinney. She perceived that this was a test purchase. The price of the jar was marked five pounds. Susan said demurely, "We can sell this to you, my lord, for three pounds ten." "I’ll take it, Mrs. Quinney."