"I wonder what we could get for Dave?" B. asks his estranged woman friend. "I mean if we sold him. What could we get? What would Dave realise, the market being what it is?"

"I should think the market is flooded with Daves just now. But it's not a bad idea, though."

"To a collector he might be more precious than rubies, but to me he's just garbage."

"Of course—we'd have to find out by having him appraised. Find out what he knows. What he can do. Maybe he has some skill sets we don't know about. Maybe he brings to the job a varied experience in dealing with the public on many different levels."

"Don't forget he's a very nice man. Let's not forget that, that—that humanity of his," says B.

"Myself, I like the way he scarfs poutine and looks around for more with grease on his chin."

"Let's just enumerate his plus qualities:

"Well?"

"I've just been on the phone with the people. They've given us an appointment. They also wanted to know something about his provenance."

"Are they coming over, or are we supposed to take him in?"

"No, they'll come here. What do we know about Dave's provenance? Didn't he always say ..."

"All lies, I believe."

"Oh yeah."

"So we might have to hang fire for now."

"Hang fire? what?"

"Hold off on this for now. Not sell him just yet. Until we know more."

"We'll have to consider the whole thing carefully then."

"Yes. Meanwhile—I'm going to ask you to get the bastard out of here before I break this piece of lumber over him."