'See there!' he cried in triumph, and they all looked eagerly; and when the Spectator's pride was soaring at its highest, a younger daughter cried, 'Why, papa, it's the back of a hair-brush!' And it was." An auctioneer usually tries to be off-hand, waggish, and brisk--a cross between a street peddler and a circus clown, with a hint of the forced mirth of the after-dinner speaker.

Occasionally the jokes are good and the answers from the audience show the ready Yankee wit.
Once an exceedingly fat man, too obese to descend from his high wagon, bought an immense dinner bell and he was hit unmercifully.

A rusty old fly-catcher elicited many remarks--as "no flies on that." I bought several chests, half full of rubbish, but found, alas! no hidden treasure, no missing jewels, no money hid away by miserly fingers and forgotten.

Jake Corey, who was doing some work for me, encouraged me to hope.

He said: "I hear ye patronize auctions putty reg'lar; sometimes there is a good deal to be made that way, and then ag'in there isn't.