“Five pounds! You offer the paltry sum of five pounds for this magnificent sideboard, which contains a cellaret for the wedding champagne and a cupboard for the christening cake! Ladies and gentlemen——”
He threw himself, as it were, upon their better feelings. And several people who did not want the sideboard began to bid for it as if their happiness in life depended upon their getting it.
“Five pounds ten! Six pounds! Seven pounds ten!”
“Eight!” said Andy, beginning to be awfully excited too.
“Eight ten!” said Mrs. Will Werrit.
“Nine!” said Andy.
“Nine ten!” said a new voice—clear, and yet breathless.
“Ten pounds!” said Andy, glaring in the direction of the voice.
“Ten ten!” and the crowd opened, leaving a little space around a girl who seemed to bloom suddenly upon the dull background of oldish faces like an evening primrose on the twilight. She was pale with the fear of being late and the excitement of arriving just in time, and she waited with parted lips for Andy’s defiant “Eleven!”
The other buyers had all stopped bidding, and her quick “Eleven ten!” rang clear across a silence.