Auctioneer. Two pounds! (Confidentially to P.) Your good lady knows a good bit o' stuff when she sees it, Sir! Two pounds for the chest! Two pounds! Any advance on a couple o' pounds? All done at two pounds? Going at two pounds! (Meeting silence, pretends to hear another bid). Two-pun-ten! Quite right, Sir! Very foolish to lose such a superior harticle for a pound or two. Going at two-pun-ten! Larst time, two-pun ten! Going—going—g—
Paterfamilias (hastily). Two-fifteen!
Auctioneer (cheerily). Two-fifteen! (Taking other imaginary bids.) Three-pounds! Three-five! (Thank you, Madam). Three-ten! Going at three-ten! Last time, three-ten! (To Paterfamilias.) Are you going to lose it, Sir? Worth double, I assure you! Ask your good lady!
Materfamilias (aside). Bid three-fifteen, JOHN, but not a penny more!
Paterfamilias (weakly). Three-fifteen!
Auctioneer. Three-fifteen! Four! Going at four! Last time at four! All done, four! Going, going—gone! (Drops hammer.) Sold at four pounds, SAM! (Looks round.) Who bid four? [No response, as the last bid was imaginary.
Sam (huskily). Gen'l'man as bid four jest slipped hout, Sir.
Auctioneer (tartly). Tut—tut—tut! Too bad, really. Well, Sir, then I must take your bid. Sold to this Gentleman, SAM, at Three-fifteen!
[Paterfamilias, highly pleased, pays deposit, and arranges to send for his bargain in the morning. As he and his "good lady" leave, they notice close by, three men with barrows, each bearing a blazingly red and strongly-smelling chest of drawers. Materfamilias complacently remarks on the manifest superiority of the article they have purchased, to "that red rubbish." Next morning they receive, instead of their own "bargain," one of those identical brand-new, badly-made, unseasoned, thinly-veneered "shop 'uns," which are "blown together" by the gross for such purposes. They protest, but vainly, notwithstanding their true assertion that the drawers they received contain "fresh shavings" instead of the "sprigs of blooming lavender" they had observed in those they thought they had purchased. Paterfamilias, a week later, looking in at the Auction-room, sees what he could swear to be the very chest of drawers he had purchased being "sold again" in a similar fashion.