eby's. Fine for moving the small stuff.

Craphound was there, of course. I knew he'd be. It was where we met, when he bid
on a case of Lincoln Logs I'd found at a fire-sale.

I'd known him for a kindred spirit when he bought them, and we'd talked
afterwards, at his place, a sprawling, two-storey warehouse amid a cluster of
auto-wrecking yards where the junkyard dogs barked, barked, barked.

Inside was paradise. His taste ran to shrines -- a collection of fifties bar
kitsch that was a shrine to liquor; a circular waterbed on a raised podium that
was nearly buried under seventies bachelor pad-inalia; a kitchen that was nearly
unusable, so packed it was with old barn-board furniture and rural memorabilia;
a leather-appointed library straight out of a Victorian gentlemen's club; a
solarium dressed in wicker and bamboo and tiki-idols. It was a hell of a place.

Craphound had known all about the Goodwills and the Sally Anns, and the auction
houses, and the kitsch boutiques on Queen Street, but he still hadn't figured
out where it all came from.

"Yard sales, rummage sales, garage sales," I said, reclining in a vibrating
naughahyde easy-chair, drinking a glass of his pricey single-malt that he'd
bought for the beautiful bottle it came in.

"But where are these? Who is allowed to make them?" Craphound hunched opposite
me, his exoskeleton locked into a coiled, semi-seated position.

"Who? Well, anyone. You just one day decide that you need to clean out the
basement, you put an ad in the _Star_, tape up a few signs, and voila, yard
sale. Sometimes, a school or a church will get donations of old junk and sell it
all at one time, as a fundraiser."

"And how do you locate these?" he asked, bobbing up and down slightly with
excitement.

"Well, there're amateurs who just read the ads in the weekend papers, or just
pick a neighbourhood and wander around, but that's no way to go about it. What I
do is, I get in a truck, and I sniff the air, catch the scent of crap and
_vroom!_, I'm off like a bloodhound on a trail. You learn things over time: like
stay away from Yuppie yard sales, they never have anything worth buying, just
the same crap you can buy in any mall."

"Do you think I might accompany you some day?"

"Hell, sure. Next Saturday? We'll head over to Cabbagetown -- those old coach
houses, you'd be amazed what people get rid of. It's practically criminal."

"I would like to go with you on next Saturday very much Mr Jerry