No wonder Professor Spink looked sick. He broke through the group, flinging the neat packages of bills behind him as he strode away.
“How about the desk, Professor?” shouted Harris; “don’t you want it?”
“Give it to the old woman–you swindler!” snarled Spink.
And then the crowd roared! The humor of the thing struck them and it was half an hour before the auctioneer could go on with the sale.
“No; I did not know the bills were there,” Harris avowed. “But I thought the professor was so avaricious that he could be made to bid up the old desk. Had he bid on it when it was put up by the auctioneer, however, Mrs. Harrison would not have benefited. You see, the best the auctioneer can do, what he gets from the sale will not entirely satisfy Spink’s claim. But the money-grabber can’t touch that fifty dollars in good money he paid over to Mrs. Harrison with his own hands.”
“Oh, it was splendid, Harris!” gasped Lyddy, seizing both his hands. Then she retired suddenly to Mrs. Harrison’s side and never said another word to the young man.
“Gee, cracky!” said Lucas, with a sigh. “I was scairt stiff when I seen them bills fall out of the old desk. I thought sure they were good.”
“I confess I knew what they were immediately–and so did Spink,” replied Harris.
The young folks had got enough of the vendue now, and so had Mrs. Pritchett. Lucas agreed to come up with the farm wagon for the pieces of furniture with which Harris had presented the Widow Harrison–including the broken desk–and transport them and the widow herself to Hillcrest before night.
Mrs. Pritchett was enthusiastic over the girls taking Mrs. Harrison to the farm, and she could not say enough in praise of it. So Lyddy was glad to get out of the buckboard with Harris Colesworth at the bottom of the lane.