The Sale of Work took place during the September that followed the winter of Larry’s disaster, and it was indisputable that the Mangan family contributed materially to its success.  Mrs. Mangan was of a class that is accustomed to get its money’s worth, and was herself known and respected as an able and inveterate haggler.  Yet, at the Mount Music Sale, she was content to hide her talent beneath innumerable chair-backs and night-dress cases, purchased, uncomplainingly, at the prices marked on them, and to permit the contents of an apparently inexhaustible purse to flow in a golden stream from stall to stall.  Her family were no less in evidence, the Big Doctor offering himself a cheerful victim on the shrine of raffles, even attaching himself to Christian as a coadjutor in the sale of tickets for the disposal of one of Rinka’s latest progeny.  Mrs. Mangan’s son and daughter, something subdued by unfamiliar surroundings, were, on the disposal of the puppy-tickets, taken in hand by their father, and were, with an eloquence that seemed meant for a larger audience, made acquainted with the notable objects of the house.

“If I could get hold of your mother, now,” the Big Doctor would say, “I’d like her to see this,” or “Look at that picture, Tishy!  That’s a lovely woman!  The Major’s grandmother, I believe.  We’ll ask Miss Judith—­’pon my honour, it might have been done of herself!”

Miss Judith, with a fruit and flower stall near the portrait in question, coldly admitted the relationship, and ignored the question of the likeness.  Judith was of the age of intolerance; moreover, she was at that moment in the act of selling a button-hole to Bill Kirby, and the Doctor’s enthusiasm was undesired.

The little family party moved on, while Dr. Mangan, with the ease of an habitue, indicated to his son and daughter the ancestral portraits in the dining-room, the Cromwellian arms on the staircase, the coats-of-arms, the Indian weapons, the foxes’ masks in the hall.  The son and daughter received the information coldly.  It was their first introduction to the interior of Mount Music, and while Tishy was filled with a great resolve to be impressed by nothing, Barty was silenced by those tortures that unfamiliar surroundings have power to inflict upon the shy.

In his determination to instruct his young in all the possible objects of interest, Dr. Mangan strolled away from the crowded scene of the sale, and led them down the long passage, dedicated to sporting prints, that led to the library.

“There’s a picture there that’s worth seeing, of a Meeat Coppinger’s Court in the time of Larry’s grandfather,” he announced impressively, as he opened the door.  “The Talbot-Lowrys and the Coppingers were always fine sports men—­”

A tall old screen stood between the door and the fireplace from behind it a hunted voice said: 

“Who the devil’s there now?”

Dr. Mangan thought, complacently:  “My diagnosis was correct!” Aloud he said to his son and daughter, in a tone of hoarse consternation:  “To think of our blundering in on the Major like this!  Here!  Away now, the pair of you!”