Chapter 49: Five Hundred Grand? How About Fifty?

In the middle of the crowd, Yosef Norrell clutched his traditional painting to his chest, his face flushed as he glared at the man in front of him. Opposite him stood a thug with a beer belly, a thin little mustache, and beady eyes that screamed trouble at a glance. He held an octagonal blue-and-white porcelain vase in his arms. The mouth of the vase had a small chip, as if a piece had been knocked off. "Stare all you want, old man. It won't change a thing," the beer-bellied man snarled. "If you...