k. Big-pockety man look at you
and he no talk. You look up quick and you say, 'Oh, number one curio I
buy Japan, I remember!' He say, 'Please show me curio.' 'Never I show
curio,' you tell him. 'I buy number one curio, but I no want to show.'
Then you talk to him about Japan, all the streets and the theatres you
see in Japan; but all the time he talk of curio--'I ber-ry much want to
see,' he say. You say, 'You friend, you number one friend? Very well, I
show.'" After having thus given way you must go upstairs and look for
the curio, and--Inchie laid a stress upon this last statement--"you must
be a long time finding it. When you come back you place the large
lacquer box containing the five smaller boxes and the Buddha's eye--the
Holy of Holies--upon the table, and much you begin to talk about Japan,
berry like American lady talk I think; you no talk to him then about
porcelain. After much talk about beautiful blossom you take out one box;
then you talk more and take out another box--gentleman he ber-ry much
want to see. When you come to final piecee box he berry much excited,
and when you take out the porcelain and yellow silk you berry berry
quiet--no artistic to talk now. Then you drop the corners of the silk
and look at the porcelain. You no talk, big-pockety man no talk; he no
understand this--berry funny. Somebody must talk, all quiet; you rest
long time no talk, and big-pockety man say, 'Berry much number one curio
that I think--how much you sell?' You say, 'I no sell. Berry much money
that costee me Japan, much ricksha, much hotel. Number one Chinese
porcelain that. Number one glaze. I no sell,'" And to cut the story
short I must explain that "the big-pockety man"--that is the
millionaire--is by this time in a perfect fever to possess my priceless
blue porcelain, and, Inchie says, here I must weaken, and after asking
him if he is "daimio gentleman number one," I must allow him to buy my
two-cent vase for two hundred dollars.

In giving me this important lesson in the art of selling, Inchie
considered that he had shown me the truest mark of friendship, and that
he had given me the most valuable present in his power, and far more
useful than any jewel could be.

Towards the end of the work, when the house was nearly completed, and I
had entertained mentally almost every friend I knew, and had missed
nothing from the door-mat to the red lacquer soup-bowls on the
dining-room table, I suddenly remembered the door-kno