Let us draw near and scrutinize the scene that unfolds itself at each presentation: The attendants fetch out an offering described in the printed catalogue, let us say, as Number 77 A: Oriental Lamp with Silk Shade. Reverently they place it upon a velvet-covered stand in a space at the back end of the salesroom, where a platform is inclosed in draperies with lights so disposed overhead and in the wings as to shed a soft radiance upon the inclosed area. The helpers fade out of the picture respectfully. A tiny pause ensues; this stage wait has been skillfully timed; a suitable atmosphere subtly has been created. Oh, believe me, in New York we do these things with a proper regard for the dramatic values—culture governs all!
The withdrawal of the attendants is the cue for our sunny friend, perched up as he is behind his little pulpit with his little gavel in his hand, to fall gracefully into a posture bespeaking in every curve of it a worshipful, almost an idolatrous admiration.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen”—hear him say it—“I have the pleasure and the privilege of submitting for your approval one of the absolute gems of this splendid collection. A magnificent example of the Ming period—mind you, a genuine Ming. I am confidentially informed by the executors of the estate of the late Mr. Gezinks, the former owner of these wonderful belongings, that it was the prize piece of his entire collection. Look at the color—just look at the shape! Worth a thousand dollars if it is worth a cent. Try to buy it in one of the antique shops round the corner for that—just try, that's all I ask you to do. Now then”—this with a cheery, inviting, confident smile—“now then, what am I offered? Who'll start it off at five hundred?”
There is no answer. A look of surprise not unmixed with chagrin crosses his mobile countenance. From his play of expression you feel that what he feels, underlying his other feelings, is a sympathy for people so blinded to their own good luck as not to leap headlong and en masse at this unparalleled chance.
“Tut tut!” he exclaims and again, “tut tut! Very well, then,”—his tone is resigned—“do I hear four hundred and seventy-five—four hundred and fifty? Who'll start it at four twenty-five?”
His gaze sweeps the faces of the assemblage. It is a compelling gaze, indeed you might say mes-meristic. There is a touch of pathos in it, though, an unuttered appeal to the gathering to consider its own several interests.
“Do I hear four hundred?” He speaks of four hundred as an ostrich might speak of a tomtit's egg—as something comparatively insignificant and puny.
“Twenty dollars!” pipes a voice.
He clasps his hand to his brow. This is too much; it is much too much. But business is business. He rallies; he smiles bitterly, wanly. His soul within him is crushed and bruised, but he rallies. Rallying is one of the best things he does and one of the most frequent. The bidding livens, slackens, lags, then finally ceases. With a gesture betokening utter despair, with lineaments bathed in the very waters of woe, he heart-brokenly knocks the vase down to somebody for $88.50.
But by the time the hired men have fetched forth Lot 78 he miraculously has recovered his former confidence and for the forty-oddth time since two o'clock—it is now nearly three forty-five—is his old cheerful beaming self. Thirty seconds later his heart has been broken in a fresh place; yet we may be sure that to-morrow morning when he rises he will be whistling a merry roundelay, his faith in the innate goodness of human nature all made new and fully restored to him. He would make a perfectly bully selection if you were sending a messenger to a home to break to an unsuspecting household some such tragic tidings, say; as that the head of the family, while rounding a turn on high, had skidded and was now being removed from the front elevation of an adjacent brick wall with a putty knife. If example counted for anything at all, he would have the mourners all cheered up again and the females among them discussing the most becoming modes in black crepe in less than no time at all.