If O'Day's presence was a welcome addition to Kitty's household, it was nothing compared to the effect produced at Kling's.

Long before the month was out he had not only earned his entire wages five times over by the changes he had wrought in the arrangement and classification of the stock, but he had won the entire confidence of his employer.

Otto had surrendered when an old customer who had been in the habit of picking up rare bits of china, Japanese curios, and carvings at his own value had been confronted with the necessity of either paying Felix's price or going away without it, O'Day having promptly quadrupled the price on a piece of old Dresden, not only because the purchaser was compelled to have it to complete his set but because the interview had shown that the buyer was well aware he had obtained the former specimens at one-fourth of their value.
And the same discernment was shown when he was purchasing old furniture, brass, and so-called Sheffield plate to increase Otto's stock.

If the articles offered could still boast of either handle, leg, or back of their original state and the price was fair, they were almost always bought, but the line was drawn at the fraudulent and "plugged-up" sideboards and chairs with their legs shot full of genuine worm-holes; ancient Oriental stuffs of the time of the early Persians (one year out of a German loom), rare old English plate, or undoubted George III silver, decorated with coats of arms or initials and showing those precious little dents only produced by long service--the whole fresh from a Connecticut factory.

These never got past his scrutiny.