Kiss Kiss by Roald Dahl Page B

again. He couldn’t stand not watching him.
He saw him pull out one of the big middle drawers, and he
noticed the beautiful way in which the drawer slid open. He
saw Bert’s hand dipping inside and rummaging around among
a lot of wires and strings.
      
“You mean this?” Bert lifted out a piece of folded yellowing
paper and carried it over to the father, who unfolded it and
held it up close to his face.
      
“You can’t tell me this writing ain’t bloody old,” Rummins
said, and he held the paper out to Mr Boggis, whose whole
arm was shaking as he took it. It was brittle and it crackled
slightly between his fingers. The writing was in a long sloping
copperplate hand:
Edward Montagu, Esq. Dr.
      
To Thos. Chippendale
      
A large mahogany Commode Table of exceeding
fine wood, very rich carvd, set upon fluted legs, two very
neat shapd long drawers in the middle part and two ditto
on each side, with rich chasd Brass Handles and Ornaments,
the whole completely finished in the most exquisite
taste..........................................Ł87
          
Mr Boggis was holding on to himself tight and fighting to
suppress the excitement that was spinning round inside him
and making him dizzy. Oh God, it was wonderful! With the
invoice, the value had climbed even higher. What in heaven’s
name would it fetch now? Twelve thousand pounds? Fourteen?
Maybe fifteen or even twenty? Who knows?
      
Oh, boy!
      
He tossed the paper contemptuously on to the table and
said quietly, “It’s exactly what I told you, a Victorian
reproduction. This is simply the invoice that the seller—the man
who made it and passed it off as an antique—gave to his client.
I’ve seen lots of them. You’ll notice that he doesn’t say he made
it himself. That would give the game away.”
      
“Say what you like,” Rummins announced, “but that’s an old
piece of paper.”
      
“Of course it is, my dear friend. It’s Victorian, late
Victorian. About eighteen ninety. Sixty or seventy years old.
I’ve seen hundreds of them. That was a time when masses of
cabinet-makers did nothing else but apply themselves to faking
the fine furniture of the century before.”
      
“Listen, Parson,” Rummins said, pointing at him with a thick
dirty finger, “I’m not saying as how you may not know a fair
bit about this furniture business, but what I am saying is this:
How on earth can you be so mighty sure it’s a fake when you
haven’t even seen what it looks like underneath all that
paint?”
      
“Come here,” Mr Boggis said. “Come over here and I’ll show
you.” He stood beside the commode and waited for them to
gather round. “Now, anyone got a knife?”
      
Claud produced a horn-handled pocket knife, and Mr
Boggis took it and opened the smallest blade. Then, working
with apparent casualness but actually with extreme care, he
began chipping off the white paint from a small area on the
top of the commode. The paint flaked away cleanly from the
old hard varnish underneath, and when he had cleared away

about three square inches, he stepped back and said, “Now,
take a look at that!”
      
It was beautiful—a warm little patch of mahogany, glowing
like a topaz, rich and dark with the true colour of its two
hundred years.
      
“What’s wrong with it?” Rummins asked.
      
“It’s processed! Anyone can see that!”
      
“How can you see it, Mister? You tell us.”
      
“Well, I must say that’s a trifle difficult to explain. It’s
chiefly a matter of experience. My experience tells me that
without the slightest doubt this wood has been processed with
lime. That’s what they use for mahogany, to give it that dark
aged colour. For oak, they use potash salts, and for walnut it’s
nitric acid, but for mahogany it’s always lime.”
      
The three men moved a little closer to peer at the