“See here, Rogers,” he says, “let’s understand this thing.  Have you got a set of dishes like that?”

Adoniram looked at him.  “Will I get jailed if I say yes?” he answers.

“Maybe you will if you don’t,” says Peter.  “Now, then, ladies and gentlemen, this is something we’re all interested in, and I think everybody ought to have a fair show.  I jedge from the defendant’s testimony that he has got a set of the dishes, and I also jedge, from my experience and three years’ dealings with him, that he’s too public-spirited to keep ’em, provided he’s paid four times what they’re worth.  Now my idea is this; Rogers will bring those dishes down here tomorrer and we’ll put ’em on exhibition in the hotel parlor.  Next day we’ll have an auction and sell ’em to the highest cash bidder.  And, provided there’s no objection, I’ll sacrifice my reputation and be auctioneer.”

So ’twas agreed to have the auction.

Next day Adoniram heaves alongside with the dishes in a truck wagon, and they was strung out on the tables in the parlor.  And such a pawing over and gabbling you never heard.  I’d been suspicious, myself, knowing Rogers, but there was the set from platters to sassers, and blue enough and ugly enough to be as antique as Mrs. Methusalem’s jet earrings.  The “Antiquers” handled ’em and admired ’em and p’inted to the three holes in the back of each dish—­the same being proof of age—­and got more covetous every minute.  But the joy was limited.  As one feller said, “I’d like ’em mighty well, but what chance’ll we have bidding against green-back syndicates like that?” referring to the Dowager and the Duchess.

Milo and Eddie was the most worried of all, because each of ’em had been commissioned by their commanding officers not to let t’other family win.

That auction was the biggest thing that ever happened at the Old Home.  We had it on the lawn out back of the billiard room and folks came from Harniss and Orham and the land knows where.  The sheds and barn was filled with carriages and we served thirty-two extra dinners at a dollar a feed.  The dishes was piled on a table and Peter T. done his auctioneer preaching from a kind of pulpit made out of two cracker boxes and a tea chest.

But there wa’n’t any real bidding except from the Smalls and Thompsons.  A few of the boarders and some of the out-of-towners took a shy long at first, but their bids was only ground bait.  Milo and Eddie, backed by the Dowager and the Duchess, done the real fishing.

The price went up and up.  Peter T. whooped and pounded and all but shed tears.  If he’d been burying a competition hotel keeper he couldn’t have hove more soul into his work.  ’Twas, “Fifty!  Do I hear sixty?  Sixty do I hear?  Fifty dollars!  Think of it?  Why, friends, this ain’t a church pound party.  Look at them dishes!  Look at ’em!  Why, the pin feathers on those blue dicky birds in the corners are worth more’n that for mattress stuffing.  Do I hear sixty?  Sixty I’m bid.  Who says seventy?”