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etiquette. “I just thought we should get down to business. There’s no sense, really, in your looking at the few other things I’ve managed to unpack; there aren’t very many of them, and you’ve seen the most interesting of those which are out. Yet I have a pretty good knowledge of my own stock, even without an inventory sheet in my hand, and I might have something that you’d fancy, Brian. What would you fancy?”
    â€œJeepers,” Brian said. There were a thousand things he would fancy, and that was part of the problem—when the question was put as baldly as that, he couldn’t say just which of the thousand he would fancy the most.
    â€œIt’s best not to think too deeply about these things,” Mr. Gaunt said. He spoke idly, but there was nothing idle about his eyes, which were studying Brian’s face closely. “When I say, ‘Brian Rusk, what do you want more than anything else in the world at this moment?’ what is your response? Quick!”
    â€œSandy Koufax,” Brian responded promptly. He had notbeen aware that his palm was open to receive the splinter from Noah’s Ark until he had seen it resting there, and he hadn’t been aware of what he was going to say in response to Mr. Gaunt’s question until he heard the words tumbling from his mouth. But the moment he heard them he knew they were exactly and completely right.
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    â€œSandy Koufax,” Mr. Gaunt said thoughtfully. “How interesting.”
    â€œWell, not Sandy Koufax himself” Brian said, “but his baseball card.”
    â€œTopps or Fleers?” Mr. Gaunt asked.
    Brian hadn’t believed the afternoon could get any better, but suddenly it had. Mr. Gaunt knew about baseball cards as well as splinters and geodes. It was amazing, really amazing.
    â€œTopps.”
    â€œI suppose it’s his rookie card you’d be interested in,” Mr. Gaunt said regretfully. “I don’t think I could help you there, but—”
    â€œNo,” Brian said. “Not 1954. That’s the one I’d like to have. I’ve got a collection of 1956 baseball cards. My dad got me going on it. It’s fun, and there are only a few of them that are really expensive—Al Kaline, Mel Parnell, Roy Campanella, guys like that. I’ve got over fifty already. Including Al Kaline. He was thirty-eight bucks. I mowed a lot of lawns to get Al.”
    â€œI bet you did,” Mr. Gaunt said with a smile.
    â€œWell, like I say, most ’56 cards aren’t really expensive—they cost five dollars, seven dollars, sometimes ten. But a Sandy Koufax in good condition costs ninety or even a hundred bucks. He wasn’t a big star that year, but of course he turned out to be great, and that was when the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn. Everybody called them Da Bums back then. That’s what my dad says, at least.”
    â€œYour dad is two hundred per cent correct,” said Mr. Gaunt. “I believe I have something that’s going to make you very happy, Brian. Wait right here.”
    He brushed back through the curtained doorway and left Brian standing by the case with the splinter and the Polaroid and the picture of The King in it. Brian was almost dancing from one foot to the other in hope and anticipation. He told himself to stop being such a wuss; even if Mr. Gaunt did have a Sandy Koufax card, and even if it was a Topps card from the fifties, it would probably turn out to be a ’55 or a ’57. And suppose it really was a ’56? What good was that going to do him, with less than a buck in his pocket?
    Well, I can look at it, can’t I? Brian thought. It doesn’t cost anything to look, does it? This was also another of his mother’s favorite sayings.
    From the room behind the curtain there came the sounds of boxes being shifted and mild thuds as they were set on the floor. “Just a minute, Brian,” Mr. Gaunt called. He