"Here, ladies and gentlemen, is a gold-headed cane which was presented to the deceased by his admiring friends. It is pure gold—you know they would not give him anything else. How much for this? How much? No—his name is not engraved on it—so much the better—what do I hear?"
"Look at this telescope, gentlemen—a good one—you know the professor was quite an astronomer in his way—and this telescope is all right—sound and in good condition"—the auctioneer had officiated at a stock sale the day before. "You can look right into futurity through this tube. Five dollars' worth of futurity? Five—five and a half? Case and all complete."
There was a pocketful of odds and ends; gold pens, lead pencils, some odd pocket knives; these inconsiderable trifles brought more in proportion than articles of greater intrinsic value. Evidently this was an auction of memories, of emotion, of sentiment.
There was a bit of the beam of the barn that was burned down when the cow kicked over the historic lamp that inaugurated the Chicago fire—no less than three persons were ready to testify to their belief in the genuineness of the relic, had anyone been disposed to question it. But no one was. Nearly all the people in the room were the dead music teacher's personal friends; they had heard the story of all these things; they knew who had sent him the stuffed brown prairie chicken that perched like a raven above the door—the little old-fashioned decanter and wine glasses of gilded glass—the artificial begonias—that clever imitation that goes far toward making one forswear begonias forevermore. There were lamps of various shapes and sizes, there was a kit of burglarious looking tools for piano tuning, there was a little globe—"Who wants the earth?" said the auctioneer. "You all want it."
There was a metronome, which, set to go, began to count time in a metallic whisper for some invisible pupil. Over in the corner just beyond the music were the professor's books. Now we shall find him out, for what a man reads he is, or wishes to be. There was a good deal of spiritualistic literature of the better sort. There was a "History of Christianity and Paganism by the Roman Emperor Julian," a copy of "She," a long shelf full of North American Reviews, a dozen or so of almanacs, a copy of Bluebeard. There were none of the "popular" magazines, and if there had been newspapers—those vagrants of literature—they had gone their way. There was a manuscript play for parlor presentation, with each part written out in legible script, entitled, "The Winning Card."
All these and many more things which only the patient appraisers can fully know were sold or set aside as unsalable, until all was done. And then those who had known and loved him and those who had not known or cared for him came down the stairs together.
Fate stood on the landing. As always, Fate ran true to form. She was a woman; a little tired, as a woman might well be who had come a thousand miles; a little out of breath from the two flights of stairs. Her old-fashioned draperies clung about her; her hair was looped away from her face in a "Book of Beauty" style. The man who stood aside to let her pass was talking. "Of course," he was saying, "he was a side-tracked man. But I believe he stands the biggest chance of being remembered of any man in Iowa."
Swift protest at his first words clouded her face; sheer gratitude for his last words illumined it. She bent forward a little and went on up the stairs alone.
She faltered in the doorway, her hand fumbling at her throat. One of the men who had been talking below hastened to her side.
"It's all over," he said, then added, at the dumb misery that grayed her face: "—the auction."