* * * * * Later that day, Iris had another caller. He sent up no card, but Agnes told her that a Mr. Pollock wished to see her. "Don't go down, if you don't want to," urged Lucille, "I'll see what he wants." But Miss Darrel's presence was not satisfactory to the stranger. He insisted on seeing Miss Clyde. So Iris came down to find a man of pleasant manner and correct demeanor, who greeted her with dignity. "I ask but a few moments of your time, Miss Clyde. I am Rodney Pollock, home Chicago, business hardware, but as a recreation I am a collector." "And you are interested in my late aunt's curios," suggested Iris. "I am sorry to disappoint you, but they are not available for sale yet, and, indeed, I doubt if they ever will be." "Don't go too fast," Mr. Pollock smiled a little, "my collection is not of rare bibelots or valuable curios. Perhaps I'd better confide that I'm an eccentric. I gather things that, while of no real use to others, interest me. Now, what I want from you, and I am willing to pay a price for it, is the ten cent piece and the pin your aunt left to you in her will." "What!" and Iris stared at him. "I told you I was eccentric," he said, quietly, "more, I am a monomaniac, perhaps. But, also, I am a philosopher, and I know, that, as old Dr. Coates said, 'If you want to be happy, make a collection.' So I collect trifles, that, valueless in themselves, have a dramatic or historic interest; and I wish," he beamed with pride, "you could see my treasures! Why, I have a pencil that President Garfield carried in his pocket the day he was shot, and I have a shoelace that belonged to Charlie Ross, and----" "What very strange things to collect!" "Yes, they are. But they interest me. My business, hardware, is prosaic, and having an imaginative nature I let my fancy stray to these tragic mementoes of crime or disaster. I have a menu card from the Lusitania and a piece of queerly twisted glass from the Big Tom explosion. I look reverently upon the relics of sad disasters, and I value my collection as a numismatist his coins or an art collector his pictures." "But it seems so absurd to ask for a common pin!" "It may, but I would greatly like to have it. You see, it was an unusual gift. You didn't care for it, in fact, I have heard you indignantly spurned it." "I did." "They say, you expected a diamond pin, and your aunt left you a dime and pin! Is that so?" "That is so." "Pardon my smiling, but I think it's the funniest thing I ever heard. And I would greatly like to have that pin and that dime." "I'm sorry to say it's impossible, as I flung them away, and I've no idea where they landed." "If you had them would you sell them to me?" "I'd give them to you, if I had them! Why, it was merely an ordinary dime, not an old or rare coin. And the pin was a common one."