The auctioneer glanced quickly at Mr. Gibney, but noticing that
worthy's face free from guile, he burst out laughing.

"My sea-faring friend," he said presently, "when we use the term
'old horse,' we use it figuratively. See all this freight stored
here? Well, that's old horses. It's freight from the S.P.
railroad that's never been called for by the consignees, and
after it's in the warehouse a year and isn't called for, we have
an old horse sale and auction it off to the highest bidder.
Savey?"

Mr. Gibney took refuge in a lie. "Of course I do. I was just
kiddin' you, my hearty." (Here Mr. Gibney's glance rested on two
long heavy sugar-pine boxes, or shipping cases. Their joints at
all four corners were cunningly dove-tailed and wire-strapped.)
"I was a bit interested in them two boxes, an' seein' as this is a
free country, I thought I'd just step in an' make a bid on them,"
and with the words, Mr. Gibney walked over and busied himself in
an inspection of the two crates in question.

The fact of the matter was that so embarrassed was Mr. Gibney at
the exposition of his ignorance that he desired to hide the
confusion evident in his sun-tanned face. So he stooped over the
crates and pretended to be exceedingly interested in them,
hauling and pushing them about and reading the address of the
consignee who had failed to call for his goods. The crates were
both consigned to the Gin Seng Company, 714 Dupont Street, San
Francisco. There were several Chinese characters scrawled on the
top of each crate, together with the words, in English: "Oriental