"Chase yourself," he said; "it's a quarter of twelve, and the foreclosure sale begins at noon."
VI
On the rostrum of an auctioneer in the Vesey Street salesroom stood Eleazer Levy in weighty conversation with Miles M. Scully, the referee in foreclosure. Scully's brow was furrowed into a thousand earned wrinkles, and the little knot of real-estate brokers who regularly attend foreclosure sales gazed reverently on the two advocates.
"And here was this guy," Levy concluded, "with nothing but a pair of sixes all the time."
"But in a table-stakes game," Scully murmured, "you make a sight more if you don't butt into every pot. If you think you're topped lay 'em down. That's what I do, and it pays."
They were waiting for the auctioneer to appear, and Goldblatt hung around the edge of the crowd and gazed anxiously at them. He had heard that morning of the proposed street widening and wanted the sale to go through without a hitch. At length the auctioneer arrived and the clerk read off the notice of sale in a monotonous gabble just as Philip elbowed his way through the crowd.
"Now, then, gentlemen," the auctioneer announced pompously, "the four parcels will be sold separately. Each is subject to a first mortgage of twenty thousand dollars and is otherwise free and clear except the taxes. The amount of taxes is——"
"Hey, there!" Philip cried at this juncture. "I got something to say, too."
The auctioneer paused and fixed Philip with what was intended to be a withering look.