"I can't."
"I can't," echoed Lulu, Max, and several others.
"Come now, children, can't you be quiet a bit?" asked Harold. "I can't auction off these goods unless you are attending and ready with your bids."
Setting down a basket he had brought in with him, he took an article from it and held it high in air.
"We have here an elegant lace veil worth perhaps a hundred dollars; it is to be sold now to the highest bidder. Somebody give us a bid for this beautiful piece of costly lace, likely to go for a tithe of its real value."
"One dollar," said Rosie.
"One dollar, indeed! We could never afford to let it go at so low a figure; we can't sell this elegant and desirable article of ladies' attire so ridiculously low."
"Ten dollars," said Maud.
"Ten dollars, ten dollars! This elegant and costly piece of lace going at ten dollars!" cried the auctioneer, holding it higher still and waving it to and fro. "Who bids higher? It is worth ten times that paltry sum; would be dirt cheap at twenty. Somebody bid twenty; don't let such a chance escape you; you can't expect to have another such. Who bids? Who bids?"
"Fifteen," bid Zoe.