“Yes,” replied Henry; “and he looks as if he had just had the mines of Peru given him.”
“He!” exclaimed the foreigner, in astonishment. “And how will he pay?”
“No one will pay all,” replied Henry, laughing. “The agent can only weigh probabilities; and if he happens to know that that poor fellow has a little coin hidden somewhere, to help him on for a year or two, he will stop at his bidding as the highest.”
“But why stop? Is it not the people’s part to stop?”
“We might wait long enough for that,” replied Alexander. “They will bid against each other till midnight. They will offer a hundred per annum per acre rather than lose their chance of getting the land. Our people are very rich in promises.”
“And how much has the ragged man promised?”
“Flanagan!” shouted Henry, above the din, which sank to silence in a moment, “how much has your first lot brought you?”
“Nine pounds per acre, Sir, and yonder stands the tenant.”
The successful bidder, came forward, smiling and scraping, not a whit ashamed of the bare knees which had burst through what had once been breeches, or of the tatters which were bound about his person, in various directions, by hay-ropes, there being no other way of keeping them together.
“Ask him,” urged the eager foreigner, “ask him where his pounds are to come from, and why he wishes to be a farmer.”