It was not, Mr Maybee recognized, a great sale. Old Dr Savage had owned no treasures. His furniture had been very good in its time, but like many people who live to a great age, the old scholar had become indifferent to his household belongings; Mr Maybee’s trained eye told him that nothing of consequence in the house had been bought after 1925; most of the furnishing had been done about 1905. The leather chairs had scuffed, scabby surfaces; a velvet-covered sofa, upon which the Doctor had taken his afternoon nap for many years, showed all too plainly at one end that he had done so with his boots on, and at the other that he had drooled as he slept. The furniture seemed to have died with its owner; chairs which had looked well enough in the house showed weak legs when held up for sale; water-colours which had looked inoffensive on the walls seemed, on this sunny day, to be all of weak and ill-defined blues and greys, like old men’s eyes. But Mr Maybee was not discouraged. He knew what people would buy.
To the surprise of everyone except Mr Maybee, the large pieces of furniture went cheap, and the trinkets went dear. A large and ugly oak dining table, with ten chairs and a hideous sideboard, went for forty-five dollars; a tea-wagon brought forty-two. A couple of lustre jugs, which Valentine could not remember seeing before, fetched the astonishing sum of thirty-six dollars for the pair. The silver sold well, for though it was ugly, it was sterling. A mantel clock, presented to Dr Savage thirty years before by the Waverley Philosophical Society, brought a staggering initial bid of fifty dollars, and went at last for eighty, though it had never been known to keep time. A kitchen clock, which Mr Maybee waggishly announced would keep either Standard or Daylight Saving Time, was sold to an Indian from a nearby reservation for six dollars, which was four dollars more than it was worth. A bundle of walking-sticks was sold to a sentimentalist who had learned a little elementary philosophy from the Doctor many years before, for five dollars. A Bechstein piano which had belonged to Valentine’s grandmother was bid for briskly after Mr Maybee had played a spirited polka on it, and brought three hundred dollars. A teak workbox, described by Mr Maybee as the life’s work of a life prisoner in the nearby penitentiary, brought a beggarly four dollars, which the auctioneer mentally estimated to be about ten cents for every pound of its weight.
Freddy enjoyed the sale thoroughly. She wondered, however, how long it would be before the wooden box of books would be offered.
But Hector’s message had been received by Mr Elliot, who had passed it on to Mr Maybee, and it was not until half-past four that it appeared. By that time Hector was standing at the back of the crowd.
“A box of books, ladies and gentlemen. I cannot offer you a more exact description. As you know, Dr Savage’s library was given away yesterday, according to his own wish, to the clergy of Salterton.” (There was some laughter here, which Mr Maybee rebuked with his eye.) “These few remaining books were discovered in the Doctor’s vault after that disposal. Anyone who wishes a sentimental souvenir of a great scholar and gentleman cannot do better than acquire this lot. What am I bid?.. Come along, there’s a spice of mystery about this box; you don’t know what you’ll get…What do I hear? Who’ll say a dollar for a starter? A dollar, a dollar, a dollar—do I hear a dollar?”
“Fifty cents,” said Freddy, and blushed fiercely as people turned to look at her.
“I have fifty. Who’ll say a dollar? A dollar for the mystery box. Come on, you can’t lose. At least ten books here, each one worth a dollar apiece. A dollar, a dollar, a dollar. Aha, I have a dollar. Thank you sir.”
Freddy turned towards the bidder. Old Mackilwraith! What did he want books for? He didn’t look as though he ever read anything but examination papers. Except menus, she thought spitefully. She caught Mr Maybee’s eye, and nodded firmly.
Two; two, two. I have two dollars for the mystery box.”
Hey, thought Freddy; I meant another fifty cents.
Three; three; three. The gentleman at the back offers me three.”
Freddy nodded again.
Hector was quite as much annoyed as Freddy. What did she want with those books? Should he hurry to her and tell her that he was buying them for her sister? But the bidding was moving too quickly. The box was now at ten dollars, and the bid was Freddy’s. He nodded again. Eleven dollars! It was ridiculous.
Mr Maybee was delighted. It was such odd contests at this time which made his life a pleasure, and picked up the sums which he could not realize from old-fashioned dining-room sets and scabrous old couches. The bidding proceeded briskly, and he knew that he had two stubborn people on his hook.
The box now stood at eighteen dollars. As Hector raised it to nineteen, Freddy made a great decision. She had only twenty dollars, but she could not be beaten; she had to have the box, now. She would simply go on, and explain to Daddy how matters had stood. Surely he would understand. He wouldn’t want her to be beaten in public, like this. And even if he didn’t understand he would have to pay up; he couldn’t let her go to jail. People would say he had neglected her, and make a delinquent of her.
“Twenty,” said she, boldly.
“Twenty-one,” said Hector, and his face was flushed so deeply that it seemed in danger of going quite black.
On the bidding went until Freddy was at twenty-eight. She faltered. Thirty dollars was a terrible sum of money to pay for a box of—what? It might be old hymn-books for all she knew. Her eyeballs were very hot, and she was afraid that she might cry. But she wouldn’t. She closed her lips firmly and looked down at the grass.
“I have twenty-nine. Twenty-nine dollars in this epic contest between two people who really know their literature! Do I hear thirty? All through at twenty-nine? Another dollar may do the trick! Am I all through at twenty-nine?”
Hector hated Freddy with the deadly hate of a man who had been made a fool of by a petty gangster, and who was now, twenty-four hours later, being made a fool of by a child. Hector was not mean, but the circumstances of his life had made him careful with money; it was the sinew of every success he had ever known. Fifty dollars to Pimples Buckle and now, twenty-nine dollars for these books! Even the children of the Webster family, it appeared, had long purses. But he had beaten her!
“Ah, I have thirty! Thank you sir. Thirty; thirty; thirty. Will you say thirty-one?”
Hector said thirty-one almost without thinking, as he sought the new bidder. There he was. A Jew! Hector became anti-Semitic in a fraction of a second.
The new bidder was, quite plainly, a Jew. A calm, bold man with a cigar, he had been unnoticed in the crowd until this moment.
The bidding rose, dollar by dollar, as Hector sweat nervous drops which seemed to draw his strength from him. The books were with the stranger, at forty. On Hector plunged, and a dreadful headache seized him. The crowd was delighted. Mr Maybee almost sang.
The books were with Hector at forty-nine. The stranger bobbed his head. Hector could bear no more. He was beset by fiends. In a blasphemous moment he permitted himself not to care whether Griselda had Victorian novels to read or not.
“Sold at fifty, to the gentleman with the cigar!”
There was a flutter of applause, mingled with some sounds of disapproval. The contest for the books had been enlivening, but a Salterton audience was not sure that it was suitable that the victory should go to a stranger. It was widely felt that the Jew, though a bold bidder, had shown himself a little too pushing. There were few things to be sold after the box of books, and by five o’clock most of the crowd had gone.