So, already, there were thousands of workmen in it, innocent enough panderers in the past to luxurious vice, who were feeling the pinch of hunger from lack of employment; and there were those past employers also, deprived now of pensions and offices, with a bankrupt future before them. But Lucknow had a keener grievance than these in the new tax on opium, the drug which helps men to bear hunger and bankruptcy; so, as the auctioneer said, it was not a place in which to expect brisk bidding for wild beasts with large appetites. But the parrots roused a faint interest, and the crowd laughed suddenly at the fluttering screams of a red and blue macaw, as it was tossed from hand to hand, on its way to the surprised and reluctant purchaser who had bid a farthing for it out of sheer idleness.
"Another mouth to feed, Shumshu!" jeered a fellow butcher, as he literally flung the bird at a neighbor's head. "Rather he than I," laughed the recipient, continuing the fling. "Ari! Shumshu, take thy baby. Well caught, brother! but what will thy house say?"
"That I have made a fat bargain," retorted the big, coarse owner coolly, as he wrung the bird's neck, and twirled it, a quivering tuft of bright feathers and choking cries, above his head. "Thou'lt buy no meat at a farthing a pound, even from my shop, I'll swear, and this bird weighs two, and is delicate as chicken."
The laugh which answered the sally held a faint scream, not wholly genuine in its ring. It came from the edge of the crowd, where two English riders had paused to see what the fun was about.
"Cruel devils, aren't they, Allie?" said one, a tall, fair man whose good looks were at once made and marred by heaviness of feature. "Why! you've turned pale despite the rouge!" His tone was full of not over-respectful raillery; his bold, bloodshot eyes met his companion's innocent looking ones with careless admiration.
"Don't be a fool, Erlton," she replied promptly; and the even, somewhat hard pitch of her voice did not match the extreme softness of her small, childish face. "You know I don't rouge; or you ought to. And it was horrible, in its way."
"Only what your ladyship's cook does to your ladyship's fowls," retorted Major Erlton. "You don't see it done, that's all the difference. It is a cruel world, Mrs. Gissing, the sex is the cruelest thing in it, and you, as I'm always telling you, are the cruelest of your sex."
His manner was detestable, but little Mrs. Gissing laughed again. She had not a fine taste in such matters; perhaps because she had no taste for them at all. So, in the middle of the laugh, her attention shifted to the big white cockatoo which formed the next lot. It had a most rumpled and dejected appearance as it tried to keep its balance on the ring which the soldier assistant swung backward and forward boisterously.
"Do look at that ridiculous bird!" she exclaimed, "Did you ever see any creature look so foolish?"
It did, undoubtedly, with its wrinkled gray eyelids closed in agonized effort, its clattering gray beak bobbing rhythmically toward its scaly gray legs. It roused the auctioneer from his depression into beginning in grand style. "Now, then, gentlemen! This is a real treat, indeed! A cockatoo, old as Methusalem and twice as wise. It speaks, I'll be bound. Says 'is prayers--look at 'im gemyflexing! and maybe he swears a bit like the rest of us. Any gentleman bid a rupee!--a eight annas?--a four annas? Come, gentlemen!"