"All right, you guys! How much? How much for this big black? A mountain of muscular ability! Young, kind, willing, smart! How much? How much?"
Bids abominably low at first, but slowly crawling up; crawling slowly, as a boa constrictor crawls up on its victim. But, without fail, as a bid was sung out from that surging, gawking, chin-lifting mob, a woman, way in back, would surpass it! And that woman hung on, as no boa constrictor could! Gadsby, way down in front, couldn't fathom it, at all. Why should a woman want Big Four? A solitary animal, possibly, but four! So His Honor, turning and making his way toward that back row, ran smack into Nancy.
"Daddy! Lady Standish is outbidding all this crowd!"
"Oho! So that's it!"
So Gadsby, pushing his way again through that jam, and coming to that most worthy woman, said:—
"By golly, Sally! It's plain that you want Big Four."
"John Gadsby, you ought to know that I do. Why! A man might buy that big pair of roans to hitch up to a plow! Or hook a big black onto an ash cart!"
"I know that, Sally, but that small back yard of yours is——"
"John!! Do your Municipal occupations knock all past days' doings out of your skull? You know that I own a grand, big patch of land out in our suburbs, half as big as Branton Hills. So this Big Four will just run around, jump, roll, kick, and loaf until doomsday, if I can wallop this mob out of bidding."
As Lady Standish was long known as standing first in valuation on Branton Hills' tax list, nobody in that crowd was so foolish as to hang on, in a war of bidding, against that bankroll. So Gadsby shook hands, put an arm about Nancy, walking happily away, as a roar of plaudits shot out from that crowd, for that loud, fast-talking man was announcing:—