"Dunsany, Lord - collection - Tales of Three Hemispheres" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

And that was the last that was ever seen of the wayfarer; the blacksmith,
the carpenter or the postman's son.




Tales of Three Hemispheres -- Chapter 9



THE OLD BROWN COAT
MY FRIEND, Mr. Douglas Ainslie, tells me that Sir James Barrie once told him
this story. The story, or rather the fragment, was as follows.
A man strolling into an auction somewhere abroad, I think it must have been
France, for they bid in francs, found they were selling old clothes. And
following some idle whim he soon found himself bidding for an old coat. A
man bid against him, he bid against the man. Up and up went the price till
the old coat was knocked down to him for twenty pounds. As he went away with
the coat he saw the other bidder looking at him with an expression of fury.
That's as far as the story goes. But how, Mr. Ainslie asked me, did the
matter develop, and why that furious look? I at once made enquiries at a
reliable source and have ascertained that the man's name was Peters, who
thus oddly purchased a coat, and that he took it to the Rue de Rivoli, to a
hotel where he lodged, from the little low, dark auction room by the Seine
in which he concluded the bargain. There he examined it, off and on, all day
and much of the next morning, a light brown overcoat with tails, without
discovering any excuse, far less a reason, for having spent twenty pounds on
so worn a thing. And late next morning to his sitting room looking out on
the Gardens of the Tuileries the man with the furious look was ushered in.
Grim he stood, silent and angry, till the guiding waiter went. Not till then
did he speak, and his words came clear and brief, welling up from deep
emotions.
"How did you dare to bid against me?"
His name was Santiago. And for many moments Peters found no excuse to offer,
no apology, nothing in extenuation. Lamely at last, weakly, knowing his
argument to be of no avail, he muttered something to the intent that Mr.
Santiago could have outbid him.
"No," said the stranger. "We don't want all the town in this. This is a
matter between you and me." He paused, then added in his fierce, curt way:
"A thousand pounds, no more."
Almost dumbly Peters accepted the offer and, pocketing the thousand pounds
that was paid him, and apologizing for the inconvenience he had unwittingly
caused, tried to show the stranger out. But Santiago strode swiftly on
before him, taking the coat, and was gone.
There followed between Peters and his second thoughts another long afternoon
of bitter reproaches. Why ever had he let go so thoughtlessly of a garment
that so easily fetched a thousand pounds? And the more he brooded on this
the more clearly did he perceive that he had lost an unusual opportunity of
a first class investment of a speculative kind. He knew men perhaps better
than he knew materials; and, though he could not see in that old brown coat