eddler lay at full length, a bundle of strange travel-wrecked
clothes, suggesting a lay figure in his limp inertness and the loose
sprawl of his limbs. Beside him on the boards, trim in white blouse
and tweed skirt, kneeled the vice-consul's clerk, Miss Pilgrim. She
had one arm under the man's head, and with the other was drawing
towards her his fallen bundle of rugs to serve as a pillow. As she
bent, her gentle face, luminously fair, was over the swart, clenched
countenance of the unconscious man, whose stagnant eyes seemed set on
her in an unwinking stare.

Mr. Baruch bent to help her place the bundle in position. She lifted
her face to him in recognition. Selby, fretting to and fro, snorted.

"Blamed if I'd have touched him," he said. "Most likely he never saw
soap in his life. A hobo that's what he is just a hobo."

Miss Pilgrim gave a little deprecating smile and stood up. She was a
slight girl, serious and gentle, and half her waking life was spent
in counteracting the effects of Selby 's indigestion and ill-temper.
Mr. Baruch was still stooping to the bundle of rugs.

"Oh, that'll be all right, Mr. Baruch," she assured him. "He's quite
comfortable now."

Mr. Baruch, still stooping, looked up at her.

"I am seeing the kind of rugs he has," he answered. "I am interested
in rugs. You do not know rugs no?"

"No," replied Miss Pilgrim.

"Ah! This, now, is out of Persia, I think," said Mr. Baruch, edging
one loose from the disordered bundle. "Think!" he said. "This poor
fellow, lying here he is Armenian. How many years has he walked,
carrying his carpets and rugs, all the way down into Persia, selling
and changing his goods in bazaars and caravanserais, and then back
over the Caucasus and through the middle of the Don Cossacks all
across the Black Lands carrying the rugs till he comes to throw his
fit on Mr. Selby's floor! It is a strange way to live, Miss Pilgrim,
yes?"

"Ye-es," breathed Miss Pilgrim. "Ye-es."

He smiled at her. He had a corner of the rug unfolded now and draped
over his bent knee. His hand stroked it delicately; the blank light
from the window let its coloring show in its just values. Mr. Baruch,
with the dregs of his smile yet curving his lips, scanned it without
too much appearance of interest. He was known for a "collector," a
man who gathered things that others disregarded, and both Miss
Pilgrim and Selby watched him with the respect of the laity for the
initiate. But they could not