It was as if,
in the game, a red four which one had neglected to "play up" should
actually permit victory after an intricate series of disasters, by
providing a temporary resting-place for a black trey, otherwise fatally
obstructive, causing the player to marvel afresh at that last fateful
but apparently chance shuffle.
A week after Mrs. Potts had written, the gentleman who received her
letter registered as "Hyman Cohen, New York, N.Y.," at the City Hotel.
From his manner of speech when he inquired for the Lansdale home it was
seen that he seemed to be a German.
When Miss Caroline received him a little later, he asked abruptly about
furniture, and she, in some astonishment, showed him what she had, even
to that crowded into dark rooms and out of use.
He examined it carelessly and remarked that it was the worst lot that he
had ever seen.
This did not surprise Miss Caroline in the least, though she thought the
gentleman's candor exceptional. Little Arcady's opinion, which she knew
to tally with his, had always come to her more circuitously.
The strange gentleman then asked Miss Caroline, not too urbanely, if she
had expected him to come all the way from New York to look at such cheap
stuff.
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