"You can’t expect a display of pleasing emotions for a paltry five per cent a month," Berrisford whispered in my ear. I don’t think, however, that the pawnbroker could have looked pleasant no matter what per cent he got. He took Berri’s beautiful sleeve-links (they ’re made of four antique Japanese gold pieces), went into a sort of glass cage built around a high desk and a safe, and did all sorts of queer things to them. He scratched the under side of two of the coins with a small file; then he dabbed some kind of a liquid that he got out of a tiny bottle on the rough places and examined them through one of those inane spool things that jewellers hang on their eyeballs just before telling you that you ’ve busted your mainspring. Next he weighed them in a pair of scales that he fished out of a drawer in the desk, and finally he held up his claw of a hand with all the fingers distended, for us to inspect through the glass. "Why, you dreadful old man!" Berrisford exclaimed indignantly. "You gave me five and a half last time. I wouldn’t think of taking less." For a moment I supposed that the game was up and we ’d have to walk all the way back to Cambridge and be too late for luncheon when we got there; for Berrisford took his sleeve-links and strolled over to the door, saying in a loud voice,— "Come on, Tommy; there ’s a better one across the street." But just as we were leaving, "the soiled vampire" made a guttural sound that Berrisford seemed to understand, and we went back and got the amount Berri considered himself entitled to. "The quality of mercy is a little strained this morning," he said when Mr. Hirsch went into the glass cage again to make out the ticket. I always had an idea that a pawn ticket was a piece of blue cardboard—something like a return theatre ticket. But it is n’t, at all. It’s simply a thin slip of paper resembling a check—only smaller. Well, we had a delightful luncheon. After luncheon we thought of going to the matinée and sitting in the gallery, but Berri all at once exclaimed, as if the idea were a sort of inspiration,— "I ’ll tell you what we ’ll do; let ’s economize. I ’ve always wanted to; they say you can be awfully nice and contented if you never spend a cent, but just think noble thoughts." "We might go and look at the pictures in the Public Library and then cross over to the Art Museum," I suggested. "It’s free on Saturdays, you know." Berri thought that would be charming, so we walked up Boylston Street, stopping at a florist’s on the way to send some American beauties and some violets to Mrs. Hemington, at whose house we dined that Sunday night. (She was thrown out of a carriage the other day and sprained her thumb, and we thought we ought to take some notice of it, as she was very nice about asking us to come to Sunday luncheon whenever we wanted to.)