“I say, old thing,” said Archie to Reggie, “this is a bit thick, you know.  No purse will stand this drain.”

Reggie considered the matter.  His face seemed drawn under the mental strain.

“Don’t nod again,” he advised.  “If you aren’t careful, you get into the habit of it.  When you want to bid, just twiddle your fingers.  Yes, that’s the thing.  Twiddle!”

He sighed drowsily.  The atmosphere of the auction room was close; you weren’t allowed to smoke; and altogether he was beginning to regret that he had come.  The service continued.  Objects of varying unattractiveness came and went, eulogised by the officiating priest, but coldly received by the congregation.  Relations between the former and the latter were growing more and more distant.  The congregation seemed to suspect the priest of having an ulterior motive in his eulogies, and the priest seemed to suspect the congregation of a frivolous desire to waste his time.  He had begun to speculate openly as to why they were there at all.  Once, when a particularly repellent statuette of a nude female with an unwholesome green skin had been offered at two dollars and had found no bidders—­the congregation appearing silently grateful for his statement that it was the only specimen of its kind on the continent—­he had specifically accused them of having come into the auction room merely with the purpose of sitting down and taking the weight off their feet.

“If your thing—­your whatever-it-is, doesn’t come up soon, Archie,” said Reggie, fighting off with an effort the mists of sleep, “I rather think I shall be toddling along.  What was it you came to get?”

“It’s rather difficult to describe.  It’s a rummy-looking sort of what-not, made of china or something.  I call it Pongo.  At least, this one isn’t Pongo, don’t you know—­it’s his little brother, but presumably equally foul in every respect.  It’s all rather complicated, I know, but—­hallo!” He pointed excitedly.  “By Jove!  We’re off!  There it is!  Look!  Willie’s unleasing it now!”

Willie, who had disappeared through the gold curtain, had now returned, and was placing on a pedestal a small china figure of delicate workmanship.  It was the figure of a warrior in a suit of armour advancing with raised spear upon an adversary.  A thrill permeated Archie’s frame.  Parker had not been mistaken.  This was undoubtedly the companion-figure to the redoubtable Pongo.  The two were identical.  Even from where he sat Archie could detect on the features of the figure on the pedestal the same expression of insufferable complacency which had alienated his sympathies from the original Pongo.

The high-priest, undaunted by previous rebuffs, regarded the figure with a gloating enthusiasm wholly unshared by the congregation, who were plainly looking upon Pongo’s little brother as just another of those things.