“Don’t touch ’em!” said Mrs. Will sharply. “There’s a woman looking at you. You don’t want anybody to notice them before they’re auctioned if you can help it. They’ll be running you up.”
“I shan’t go beyond two shillings apiece,” said Mrs. Thorpe.
“You don’t know. Sales are such queer things. You’d think”—Mrs. Will lowered her voice still further and glanced at Andy’s back—“you’d think sometimes when you get home with a lot of rubbish you’ve no use for, that you’d been possessed.” She paused. “I shall bid for the jelly glasses. I remember thinking I should like them the last time we had supper here before Mr. Simpson’s illness.”
“Did you, now?” said Mrs. Thorpe. “Well, I thought the same about the glass dishes on that very night. Last party they gave before he was taken ill.”
And yet they were good women, and would do the widow and her children a thousand kindnesses. It is such things that make the dullest-seeming person so tremendously interesting.
“Finger-bowls!” said Mrs. Will Werrit, touching one with a scornful finger. “No wonder he died in debt!”
“Maybe they were a wedding——” began Mrs. Thorpe, but a great trampling of feet announced that the auctioneer was coming downstairs, and with a hasty “Now, stick to your place; don’t let yourself be pushed into a corner,” the two ladies prepared gleefully for the conflict.
Andy grew very tired indeed of waiting, as one thing after another was knocked down to flushed and excited buyers. The auctioneer was a kind-hearted man, and went out of his way to try and make the best price he could of the things, cracking jokes with a bad headache in a stentorian voice, which may not be a picturesque sacrifice upon the altar of charity, but is a very real one, all the same. And he understood his audience so well that he had them all in high good-humour, ready to bid for anything.
“And now,” he remarked, “we come to the sideboard. You’re not like the greedy boy who said, ‘Best first for fear I can’t hold it.’ I kept the best until the last, sure that the spacious residences of those I see around me could hold it, and find it the greatest ornament of their homes.” He put his hand to his head, feeling he was getting muddled. “Ladies—it’s not drink—it’s love! I meant to say this exquisite sideboard in solid mahogany, plate-glass back, will be the chief ornament of some home: for to my regret only one of you can possess it.” He paused. How his head ached! “Now, what shall I say for this magnificent piece of furniture fit for a ducal palace?”
“Five pounds,” said a red-faced man near the door.