“Just a wee bit.” Merry squeezed her hand. “One small package for you and one for me.”
“Yes, yes, let’s do!” the little French girl whispered eagerly, “For this is my luckee day.”
CHAPTER VII
THE MARBLE FALCON
The auctioneer, a large, bald man with a warming smile, climbed to the platform and announced the terms of the sale. “Goods,” he explained, “are sold as is. No complaints will be listened to. A deposit will be required with each purchase.”
“Ja! We know,” jeered one future purchaser. “If ve get hooked ve don’t kick. You get our money. It iss good money. So you don’t kick. All iss sveet and lovely. Ja!”
The crowd laughed. The auctioneer laughed with them. And well he could afford to, for it was he who always had the last laugh.
“Remember,” Weston, the ruddy-cheeked German, whispered in Merry’s ear, “seventy-five is union price.”
“I remember.” Merry turned her smiling eyes upon his. Those eyes had done much for her in the past. If she particularly wished a package, these, her friends of the “union,” refused to bid, and she bought it at her own price. The “union” was a union only in name. It was composed of a group of regular buyers who, meeting here and elsewhere, had themselves united in a bond of friendship.
This day, however, the union found itself greatly outnumbered by casual customers who on occasion bid high, and returned home later to curse the spirit of chance that for the moment had held them under its spell.
“Three packages!” shouted the auctioneer. “Three! How much apiece? How much for each one?”