g, and let me know how you got on?--that would be better."

Horace thought it would be decidedly better, and undertook to call and
render an account of his stewardship that evening. There remained the
question of a deposit, should one or more of the lots be knocked down to
him; and, as he was obliged to own that he had not so much as ten pounds
about him at that particular moment, the Professor extracted a note for
that amount from his case, and handed it to him with the air of a
benevolent person relieving a deserving object. "Don't exceed my
limits," he said, "for I can't afford more just now; and mind you give
Hammond your own name, not mine. If the dealers get to know I'm after
the things, they'll run you up. And now, I don't think I need detain you
any longer, especially as time is running on. I'm sure I can trust you
to do the best you can for me. Till this evening, then."

A few minutes later Horace was driving up to Covent Garden behind the
best-looking horse he could pick out.

The Professor might have required from him rather more than was strictly
justified by their acquaintanceship, and taken his acquiescence too much
as a matter of course--but what of that? After all, he was Sylvia's
parent.

"Even with _my_ luck," he was thinking, "I ought to succeed in getting
at least one or two of the lots he's marked; and if I can only please
him, something may come of it."

And in this sanguine mood Horace entered Messrs. Hammond's well-known
auction rooms.

CHAPTER II

A CHEAP LOT

In spite of the fact that it was the luncheon hour when Ventimore
reached Hammond's Auction Rooms, he found the big, skylighted gallery
where the sale of the furniture and effects of the late General
Collingham was proceeding crowded to a degree which showed that the
deceased officer had some reputation as a _connoisseur_.

The narrow green baize tables below the auctioneer's rostrum were
occupied by professional dealers, one or two of them women, who sat,
paper and pencil in hand, with much the same air of apparent apathy and
real vigilance that may be noticed in the Casino at Monte Carlo. Around
them stood a decorous and businesslike crowd, mostly dealers, of various
types. On a magisterial-looking bench sat the auctioneer, conducting the
sale with a judicial impartiality and dignity which forbade him, even in
his most laudatory comments, the faintest accent of enthusiasm.

The October sunshine, striking through the g