On their way out to the car—and Mr. Bullfinch very kindly let Jerry carry the cage with the parrot in it—Mr. Bullfinch explained that it would have been quite all right for Jerry to have made a dollar on the sewing table. "If somebody offers you more than you have paid it's all right to take it. But what made you decide you didn't want the little sewing table?"
"My mother has a sewing table," said Jerry.
"Good thing then you got rid of it," said Mr. Bullfinch. "Sometimes I'm not so lucky at getting rid of something I've bought and don't need. I get a bit carried away when I get to bidding."
Mr. Bullfinch looked calm and dignified again, but Jerry remembered how thrilled he had looked at the auction.
"Did you enjoy going to an auction?" asked Mr. Bullfinch.
"I enjoyed most of it," said Jerry. But nobody would ever know, he thought, slightly swinging the heavy cage, how relieved he had been to get rid of that mahogany sewing table. He rather wished now, though, that he had accepted that extra dollar.