Don Horacio 



(the pawnbroker), but I don't know 

 anything about the basin that be- 

 longed to the old gentleman who 

 died here awhile ago. My basin was 

 not that basin. My father brought 

 my basin from Smyrna a few months 

 ago. He bought it there for me, 

 packed it with other things in a box 

 which I myself unpacked here. I 

 have had it in my room at home 

 ever since it came until I let Stern 

 have it." 



" How did you come to let Stern 

 have it ?" 



" I was in his place one day, a lit- 

 tle while ago, when, knowing me to 

 be a buyer of curiosities, he said that 

 he was looking for a Spanish barber's 

 brass basin that had disappeared some 

 time before and was now wanted and 

 advertised for by friends of the owner, 

 who had died. He thought I might 

 have bought it from some one who 

 had offered it as a curiosity. I told 



