been jocosely
said they were thick as thieves, and if one lied t'other would swear to
it. But Timothy, in his Sunday suit, with a blue tie and an elaborate
scarf-pin, looked the picture of innocence, and it was concluded that,
although no one had suspected it, he was thinking of setting up
housekeeping for himself. The cap'n's face had an earnest absorption.
He was evidently occupied only in being auctioneer.

"Pshaw!" he said, with a conversational ruthlessness. "Fifteen dollars!
Why, I'd give that myself an' set it up out there at the cross-roads for
autos to bid on while they run. Its wuth--well, I wouldn't say what
'twas wuth. Maybe you'd laugh, an' I ain't goin' to be laughed at, if I
be an auctioneer."

"Twenty-five," piped up Deacon Eli King, won by the lure of city
rivalry.

"Twenty-six," Timothy offered quietly.

"Twenty-eight," trembled Hannah Bond, who lived alone and braided mats
for the city trade. She had always wanted a high-boy, but the sound of
her own voice made it seem as if bidding might be almost too steep a
price to pay for one.

"Twenty-nine," said Timothy.

After that there was very little competition. Nobody wanted a high-boy
except for commercial possibilities, and about the time the bidding
reached thirty-five dollars a foreshadowing timidity began to overspread
the assembly. An autumn wind came up and set the bare woodbine sprays to
beating on the window, to the tune of nearing snow. Summer buyers seemed
far away. When one considered the drifted leaves and the cold sky, it
looked as if full purses and credulous minds were a midsummer dream,
never to come again. So the high-boy, in this moment of commercial
panic, was knocked down to Timothy Fry. Five or six chairs followed, and
these also became his.

Then the crowd pressed into the west sitting-room, where there was
richer treasure. Here, too, Timothy's unmoved voice beat steadily on,
raising every bid, and here, too, he came out victor. In the next room
also he swept the field, and now at last the crowd murmurously compared
certainties, one woman darkly prophesying he never'd pay for them,
because he hadn't a cent--not a cent--laid up, and a man returning that
nobody need worry. 'Twas only a joke of Tim's; but Miss Letty'd be the
one to suffer. Timothy's eyes and ears were closed to comment. His
commercial onslaught continued, and when, in the early dusk, horses were
unhitched and there was time for comment at the gate, it was clea