“Hold hard,” said the auctioneer, hastily counting the watches on the tray and comparing the number with a list he held in his hand, “there’s one short.”
“Is there? I don’t know how that can be.”
“You’ve got twenty-two down here and there’s only twenty-one on the tray.”
The pawnbroker looked puzzled.
“Better call over the number,” said the auctioneer. So my master called out the number attached to each watch, and the auctioneer ticked it off on his list. When the last had been called, he said,—
“Where’s Number 2222?”
“Ah, to be sure, that’s the one,” said the pawnbroker, reaching up to where I lay, and taking me down; “this one. I’d forgotten all about him.”
Flattering, certainly! and still more so when the auctioneer, surveying my tarnished and dingy appearance, said, “Well, he’s not much of a show after all. You’d better rub him up a bit, or we shan’t get him off hand at all.”
“Very good,” said the pawnbroker, and I was handed over forthwith to an assistant to be cleaned. And much I needed it. My skin was nearly as black as a negro’s, and my joints and muscles were perfectly clogged with dust. I had a regular watch’s Turkish bath. I was scrubbed and powdered, my works were taken out and cleaned, my joints were oiled, my face was washed, and my hands were polished. Altogether I was overhauled, and when I took my place on the tray with my twenty-one companions I was altogether a new being, and by no means the least presentable of the company.
How we quarrelled and wrangled, and shouldered one another on that tray! There was such a Babel of voices (for each of us had been set going) that scarcely any one could hear himself speak. Nothing but recriminations and vituperations rose on every hand.