Mrs PARTRIDGE LENDS A HAND Since ten o'clock in the morning the large house, standing in its own grounds, had been invaded by a swarm of dealers, hook-nosed and ferret-eyed, prying into every corner, searching each lot for hidden faults, judging at a glance the actual value of every piece of furniture, their blood stirred with the hereditary joy in chaffering, for an auction is as full of surprises as a battle, the prices rising and falling according to the temper of the crowd.

And they watched one another with crafty eyes that had long lost the power to see anything but the faults and defects in the property of others.

Those who had commissions from buyers marked the chosen lots in their catalogue with a stumpy pencil.
Mother Jenkins was one of these.

She was the auctioneer's scavenger, snapping up the dishonoured, broken remnants disdained by the others, buying for a song the job lots on the way to the rubbish-heap.

All was fish that came to her net, for her second-hand shop in Bathurst Street had taught her to despise nothing that had an ounce of wear left in it.
Her bids never ran beyond a few shillings, but to-day she had an important commission, twenty pounds to lay out on the furnishing of three rooms for a married couple.