"And what is your angel's name?"
"Priscilla Spriggins."
"My dear fellow," exclaimed Dick with a sudden burst of emotion, "from my soul I pity you; but, alas! sympathy is all I have to offer:—look here!" and, turning his empty pockets inside out, he displayed two holes therein, about as big as the aperture of a mousetrap.
An expressive pause followed this touching exhibition; shortly after which the two adventurers parted,—Sam returning towards London, with a view, no doubt, of seeking, like Apollyon, "whom he might devour;" and Dick remaining where he was, casting ever and anon a glance towards the house where the fair Priscilla vegetated, and meditating, the while, on the revelation that had just been made to him.
Tired at length of reverie, he rose from the bench, and made his way back into Hampstead,—slowly, for every step was bringing him nearer the residence of his unreasonable landlady. On passing down by Mount Vernon, he beheld the walls on either side of him placarded with hand-bills announcing that an auction was to take place that day at a large old family mansion (the by-streets of Hampstead abound in such) close by: and, on moving towards the spot, he saw, by the groups of people who were lounging at the open door, that the sale had already begun. By way of killing an idle half-hour or so, Dick entered; and, elbowing his way up stairs, soon found himself in a spacious drawing-room, crowded with pictures, vases, old porcelain, and other articles of virtù.
Just at that moment the auctioneer put up a landscape painting by one of the old masters, on which he expatiated with the customary professional eloquence. "Going, ladies and gentlemen, going for two hundred pounds—undoubted Paul Potter—highly admired by the late lamented Lawrence—sheep so naturally coloured, you'd swear you could hear 'em bleat—frame, too, in excellent condition—going—going——"
"Two hundred and thirty!" said a small gentleman in spectacles, raising himself on tip-toe to catch the auctioneer's eye.
"Two hundred and fifty" shouted another.
"Going for two hundred and fifty," said the man in the rostrum; after a pause, "upon my word, ladies and gentlemen, this is giving away the picture. Pray look at that fore-shortened old ram in the background; why, his two horns alone are worth the money. Let me beg, for the honour of art, that——"
"Three hundred!" roared Dick, with an intrepid effrontery that extorted universal respect,—for to his other amiable qualities he added that of being a "brag" of the first water, and was proud, even though it were but for a moment, of displaying his consequence among strangers.