One fuming, perspiring man, looking too fat to ever get cool, found the prize he had drawn was a moth-eaten fur overcoat.
Peter Grimm, notoriously the stingiest man in Pleasantville, who raised the sourest apples in the town and spent most of his time watching the boys and picking up what fruit rolled outside of the fence, bided his time with watchful ferret eyes until a promising-looking package came along.
It was bid up pretty high, and the crowd urged him to disclose his treasure, but Grimm was not responsive to any mutual human sentiment and sat down with the package in his lap.
He began a secret inspection, however, gradually working off the paper covering at one end, and with snapping eyes worming his fingers inside the parcel.
Suddenly a sharp click echoed out, followed by a frightful yell.
Grimm sprang to his feet, jumping quickly about and swinging one arm wildly through the air, the parcel dangling from it like a bulldog hanging on to a coat tail.
"Murder!" he screamed. "Take it off! take it off!"
Bart had to step down to the rescue. Peter Grimm had drawn a patent mink trap, and was its first victim. He sneaked from the express office nursing his crushed fingers and kicking his unlucky purchase out into the road.
The pile of unclaimed stuff diminished rapidly. The various purchases were productive of all kinds of fun. Tom Partridge, the colored porter at the hotel, got a case of face powder, and an exquisite traveling man for a lace house drew a pair of rubber boots that would fit a giant.
One man disclosed his purchase to be a setting of eggs. They were packed in cotton and intact, though probably a year old.