He and Beasly set the TV down carefully on the floor. Abbie watched them narrowly from the stairs.

“Why, Hiram,” she said, excited, “you put a ceiling in the basement. It looks a whole lot better.”

“Huh?” asked Taine.

“The ceiling. I said you put in a ceiling.”

Taine jerked his head up and what she said was true. There was a ceiling there, but he’d never put it in.

He gulped a little and lowered his head, then jerked it quickly up and had another look. The ceiling was still there.

“It’s not that block stuff,” said Abbie with open admiration. “You can’t see any joints at all. How did you manage it?”

Taine gulped again and got back his voice. “Something I thought up,” he told her weakly.

“You’ll have to come over and do it to our basement. Our basement is a sight. Beasly put the ceiling in the amusement room, but Beasly is all thumbs.”

“Yes’m,” Beasly said contritely.

“When I get the time,” Taine promised, ready to promise anything to get them out of there.

“You’d have a lot more time,” Abbie told him acidly, “if you weren’t gadding around all over the country buying up that broken-down old furniture that you call antiques. Maybe you can fool the city folks when they come driving out here, but you can’t fool me.”

“I make a lot of money out of some of it,” Taine told her calmly.

“And lose your shirt on the rest of it,” she said.

“I got some old china that is just the kind of stuff you are looking for,” said Taine. “Picked it up just a day or two ago. Made a good buy on it. I can let you have it cheap.”