“Immediately, Mr. Toller.  It was only an act of benevolence which your noble heart would approve.  Joseph! quick with the prints—­ Lot 235.  Now, gentlemen, you who are connoiss_ures_, you are going to have a treat.  Here is an engraving of the Duke of Wellington surrounded by his staff on the Field of Waterloo; and notwithstanding recent events which have, as it were, enveloped our great Hero in a cloud, I will be bold to say—­ for a man in my line must not be blown about by political winds—­ that a finer subject—­of the modern order, belonging to our own time and epoch—­the understanding of man could hardly conceive:  angels might, perhaps, but not men, sirs, not men.”

“Who painted it?” said Mr. Powderell, much impressed.

“It is a proof before the letter, Mr. Powderell—­the painter is not known,” answered Trumbull, with a certain gaspingness in his last words, after which he pursed up his lips and stared round him.

“I’ll bid a pound!” said Mr. Powderell, in a tone of resolved emotion, as of a man ready to put himself in the breach.  Whether from awe or pity, nobody raised the price on him.

Next came two Dutch prints which Mr. Toller had been eager for, and after he had secured them he went away.  Other prints, and afterwards some paintings, were sold to leading Middlemarchers who had come with a special desire for them, and there was a more active movement of the audience in and out; some, who had bought what they wanted, going away, others coming in either quite newly or from a temporary visit to the refreshments which were spread under the marquee on the lawn.  It was this marquee that Mr. Bambridge was bent on buying, and he appeared to like looking inside it frequently, as a foretaste of its possession.  On the last occasion of his return from it he was observed to bring with him a new companion, a stranger to Mr. Trumbull and every one else, whose appearance, however, led to the supposition that he might be a relative of the horse-dealer’s—­ also “given to indulgence.”  His large whiskers, imposing swagger, and swing of the leg, made him a striking figure; but his suit of black, rather shabby at the edges, caused the prejudicial inference that he was not able to afford himself as much indulgence as he liked.

“Who is it you’ve picked up, Bam?” said Mr. Horrock, aside.

“Ask him yourself,” returned Mr. Bambridge.  “He said he’d just turned in from the road.”

Mr. Horrock eyed the stranger, who was leaning back against his stick with one hand, using his toothpick with the other, and looking about him with a certain restlessness apparently under the silence imposed on him by circumstances.

At length the “Supper at Emmaus” was brought forward, to Wills immense relief, for he was getting so tired of the proceedings that he had drawn back a little and leaned his shoulder against the wall just behind the auctioneer.  He now came forward again, and his eye caught the conspicuous stranger, who, rather to his surprise, was staring at him markedly.  But Will was immediately appealed to by Mr. Trumbull.