“Two hundred—­two hundred—­two—­three—­thank you, sir—­three-three-three-four-four-five-five-si
x-six-seven-seven-seven—­”

Archie sat limply in his wooden chair.  He was conscious of a feeling which he had only experienced twice in his life—­once when he had taken his first lesson in driving a motor and had trodden on the accelerator instead of the brake; the second time more recently, when he had made his first down-trip on an express lift.  He had now precisely the same sensation of being run away with by an uncontrollable machine, and of having left most of his internal organs at some little distance from the rest of his body.  Emerging from this welter of emotion, stood out the one clear fact that, be the opposition bidding what it might, he must nevertheless secure the prize.  Lucille had sent him to New York expressly to do so.  She had sacrificed her jewellery for the cause.  She relied on him.  The enterprise had become for Archie something almost sacred.  He felt dimly like a knight of old hot on the track of the Holy Grail.

He twiddled again.  The ring and the bracelet had fetched nearly twelve hundred dollars.  Up to that figure his hat was in the ring.

“Eight hundred I am offered.  Eight hundred.  Eight-eight-eight-eight—­”

A voice spoke from somewhere at the back of the room.  A quiet, cold, nasty, determined voice.

“Nine!”

Archie rose from his seat and spun round.  This mean attack from the rear stung his fighting spirit.  As he rose, a young man sitting immediately in front of him rose too and stared likewise.  He was a square-built resolute-looking young man, who reminded Archie vaguely of somebody he had seen before.  But Archie was too busy trying to locate the man at the back to pay much attention to him.  He detected him at last, owing to the fact that the eyes of everybody in that part of the room were fixed upon him.  He was a small man of middle age, with tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles.  He might have been a professor or something of the kind.  Whatever he was, he was obviously a man to be reckoned with.  He had a rich sort of look, and his demeanour was the demeanour of a man who is prepared to fight it out on these lines if it takes all the summer.

“Nine hundred I am offered.  Nine-nine-nine-nine—­”

Archie glared defiantly at the spectacled man.

“A thousand!” he cried.

The irruption of high finance into the placid course of the afternoon’s proceedings had stirred the congregation out of its lethargy.  There were excited murmurs.  Necks were craned, feet shuffled.  As for the high-priest, his cheerfulness was now more than restored, and his faith in his fellow-man had soared from the depths to a very lofty altitude.  He beamed with approval.  Despite the warmth of his praise he would have been quite satisfied to see Pongo’s little brother go at twenty dollars, and the reflection that the bidding had already reached one thousand and that his commission was twenty per cent, had engendered a mood of sunny happiness.