Smith held up the flower at which everybody glared.  The little ivory hammer circled round Mr. Primrose’s head.  It was about to fall, when a quiet man with a long beard who hitherto had not joined in the bidding, lifted his head and said softly: 

“Eighteen hundred.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Primrose, “I thought so.  I thought that the owner of the greatest collection in England would not see this treasure slip from his grasp without a struggle.  Against you, Mr. Woodden.”

“Nineteen, sir,” said Woodden in a stony voice.

“Two thousand,” echoed the gentleman with the long beard.

“Twenty-one hundred,” said Woodden.

“That’s right, Mr. Woodden,” cried Mr. Primrose, “you are indeed representing your principal worthily.  I feel sure that you do not mean to stop for a few miserable pounds.”

“Not if I knows it,” ejaculated Woodden.  “I has my orders and I acts up to them.”

“Twenty-two hundred,” said Long-beard.

“Twenty-three,” echoed Woodden.

“Oh, damn!” shouted Long-beard and rushed from the room.

“‘Odontoglossum Pavo’ is going for twenty-three hundred, only twenty-tree hundred,” cried the auctioneer.  “Any advance on twenty-three hundred?  What?  None?  Then I must do my duty.  One.  Two.  For the last time—­no advance?  Three.  Gone to Mr. Woodden, bidding for his principal, Mr. Somers.”

The hammer fell with a sharp tap, and at this moment my young friend sauntered into the room.

“Well, Woodden,” he said, “have they put the ‘Pavo’ up yet?”

“It’s up and it’s down, sir.  I’ve bought him right enough.”

“The deuce you have!  What did it fetch?”

Woodden scratched his head.

“I don’t rightly know, sir, never was good at figures, not having much book learning, but it’s twenty-three something.”

“£23?  No, it would have brought more than that.  By Jingo! it must be £230.  That’s pretty stiff, but still, it may be worth it.”

At this moment Mr. Primrose, who, leaning over his desk, was engaged in animated conversation with an excited knot of orchid fanciers, looked up: 

“Oh! there you are, Mr. Somers,” he said.  “In the name of all this company let me congratulate you on having become the owner of the matchless ‘Odontoglossum Pavo’ for what, under all the circumstances, I consider the quite moderate price of £2,300.”

Really that young man took it very well.  He shivered slightly and turned a little pale, that is all.  Woodden rocked to and fro like a tree about to fall.  I and my tin box collapsed together in the corner.  Yes, I was so surprised that my legs seemed to give way under me.  People began to talk, but above the hum of the conversation I heard young Somers say in a low voice: 

“Woodden, you’re a born fool.”  Also the answer:  “That’s what my mother always told me, master, and she ought to know if anyone did.  But what’s wrong now?  I obeyed orders and bought ‘O.  Paving.’”