It began low, but was spirited enough. Sid, Tom and Phil refrained from raising the bids, but there was no lack of others. By small advances the price crept up to seven dollars. There it hung for a while.
“Seven-fifty!” sung out Shambler.
“Seventy-five!” came from Joe Jackson.
“Eighty,” put in another voice, and Phil whispered to Tom:
“The Jersey twins are bidding against each other, and they don’t know it. This is rich! Frank will get more than he paid if this keeps on!”
The bidding became more spirited, being confined chiefly to Shambler, and the two twins, the latter, being in separate parts of the big auditorium, not knowing that they were whip-sawing one another.
Finally, when the price reached fourteen dollars and thirty-five cents, the davenport was knocked down to Shambler, who ordered the piece of furniture taken to his room.
“It will do to stretch out on when I come in from a run,” he remarked to some of his intimate friends. And, though Tom had no special interest in what became of Frank’s “surprise,” as it had been dubbed, still the pitcher felt himself wishing that someone else besides Shambler had secured it.
The new student seemed to feel that the purchasing of the davenport from one of the inseparables entitled him to a closer acquaintanceship with them. For, a few days after the auction, he called at their room, and made himself rather at home.