And with one consent they returned to the old pace, only now it was Bellairs who took the hundreds, and Jim who did the fifty business.  But by this time our idea had gone abroad.  I could hear the word “opium” pass from mouth to mouth; and by the looks directed at us, I could see we were supposed to have some private information.  And here an incident occurred highly typical of San Francisco.  Close at my back there had stood for some time a stout, middle-aged gentleman, with pleasant eyes, hair pleasantly grizzled, and a ruddy, pleasing face.  All of a sudden he appeared as a third competitor, skied the Flying Scud with four fat bids of a thousand dollars each, and then as suddenly fled the field, remaining thenceforth (as before) a silent, interested spectator.

Ever since Mr. Longhurst’s useless intervention, Bellairs had seemed uneasy; and at this new attack, he began (in his turn) to scribble a note between the bids.  I imagined naturally enough that it would go to Captain Trent; but when it was done, and the writer turned and looked behind him in the crowd, to my unspeakable amazement, he did not seem to remark the captain’s presence.

“Messenger boy, messenger boy!” I heard him say.  “Somebody call me a messenger boy.”

At last somebody did, but it was not the captain.

“He’s sending for instructions,” I wrote to Pinkerton.

“For money,” he wrote back.  “Shall I strike out?  I think this is the time.”

I nodded.

“Thirty thousand,” said Pinkerton, making a leap of close upon three thousand dollars.

I could see doubt in Bellairs’s eye; then, sudden resolution.  “Thirty-five thousand,” said he.

“Forty thousand,” said Pinkerton.

There was a long pause, during which Bellairs’s countenance was as a book; and then, not much too soon for the impending hammer, “Forty thousand and five dollars,” said he.

Pinkerton and I exchanged eloquent glances.  We were of one mind.  Bellairs had tried a bluff; now he perceived his mistake, and was bidding against time; he was trying to spin out the sale until the messenger boy returned.

“Forty-five thousand dollars,” said Pinkerton:  his voice was like a ghost’s and tottered with emotion.

“Forty-five thousand and five dollars,” said Bellairs.

“Fifty thousand,” said Pinkerton.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Pinkerton.  Did I hear you make an advance, sir?” asked the auctioneer.

“I—­I have a difficulty in speaking,” gasped Jim.  “It’s fifty thousand, Mr. Borden.”

Bellairs was on his feet in a moment.  “Auctioneer,” he said, “I have to beg the favour of three moments at the telephone.  In this matter, I am acting on behalf of a certain party to whom I have just written——­”

“I have nothing to do with any of this,” said the auctioneer, brutally.  “I am here to sell this wreck.  Do you make any advance on fifty thousand?”