un 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