His name's Scudder, and he's 45, and
taking lessons on the piano and 15,000 barrels of oil a day out of his
wells.'
"'All right,' says I. 'Preliminary canter satisfactory. But, kay
vooly, voo? What good is the art junk to us? And the oil?'
"'Now, that man,' says Andy, sitting thoughtfully on the bed, 'ain't
what you would call an ordinary scutt. When he was showing me his
cabinet of art curios his face lighted up like the door of a coke
oven. He says that if some of his big deals go through he'll make
J. P. Morgan's collection of sweatshop tapestry and Augusta, Me.,
beadwork look like the contents of an ostrich's craw thrown on a
screen by a magic lantern.
"'And then he showed me a little carving,' went on Andy, 'that anybody
could see was a wonderful thing. It was something like 2,000 years
old, he said. It was a lotus flower with a woman's face in it carved
out of a solid piece of ivory.
"Scudder looks it up in a catalogue and describes it. An Egyptian
carver named Khafra made two of 'em for King Rameses II.
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