“But we have a four-poster in this sale, Mr. Winters,” quickly said one of the floor-men.
“Ah, indeed! Perhaps the young lady will like it as well as the other one. Bring it forward, Joe.”
Without the slightest delay, the floor-men then pulled and pushed a very elaborately carved four-posted bed out upon the dais. It was similar to the one in the window but it was smaller, this one being four feet wide while the one on exhibition for Friday’s sale was full sized.
The auctioneer spoke of all the points about this particular piece of furniture, and then began to offer it for sale. The four visitors in the front row sat as if hypnotized at his manner.
“What, no one here to appreciate this marvelous work of other days, now to be sold for three hundred dollars?”
Not a sound encouraged him, so he sighed and said: “Well, is there anyone who will give two hundred for it?”
Eleanor’s heart thumped. She was willing to give it but she found her tongue cleave to the roof of her mouth at the very idea of securing the bed at such a price.
“Too bad! Then I shall have to ask if anyone will pay me one hundred dollars? Is this bed not worth that to you, young lady—or perhaps you need a full-sized bed?” The auctioneer looked at Eleanor but failed to see the dazzling glint that shot into her eyes when he offered the bed for one hundred. He really had no hope of starting it at that figure so he over-did it that time.
“All right, friends, I am perfectly willing to have you set your own price on this magnificent piece of carving that is no less than a hundred and fifty years old. Now what is your pleasure? Fifty, forty, thirty—what? did I hear a bargain-hunter say twenty-five? Oh, impossible?”
Eleanor almost fainted at such a dreadful sacrifice, and would have stood up to offer him the hundred, had not a man in the rear called out “Fifty.”