He had prepared a simple, witty preface to actual business, telling many truths of people who had spent a few cents for what had turned out to be worth many dollars, and inviting a good many guesses by hinting what might be in the heap upon which all eyes were fixed intently.

"Number 1129," said Bart, after taking a brief breathing spell.

Bob Haven lifted a box about two feet square to the table.

"Shipped to William Brothers, Ross Junction," announced Bart, reading the tag, "not found. Come, gentlemen! what am I bid for lot 1129?"

"What's in it?" inquired a big farmer sitting near the front.

"You will have to guess that," answered Bart pleasantly. "Ah! some kind of liquid, I should imagine," and he shook the box, its contents echoing out a mellow, gurgling sound.

"Mebbe it's paint, Samantha?" suggested the farmer to his wife. "There'd be two gallons of it--enough to cover the smokehouse. Ten cents."

"The charges are eighty-five," explained Bart--"can't start it any lower."

A blear-eyed, unsteady individual, whom Bart recognized as a member of the Sharp Corner contingent, advanced to the table.

He was thirsty-looking and eager as he poked at the box and tried to peer into it.

"A demijohn!" he muttered, his mouth watering. "Two gallons--probably prime old stuff. Eighty-five cents."

"Eighty-five--eighty-five!" repeated Bart.

"Ninety," said the farmer.

"Dollar!" mumbled the thirsty-looking man.

"Do I hear any more?" challenged Bart, gavel suspended, "once, twice, and sold to--cash."

The inebriate paid his money, chuckled and took the box to one side, hugging it like a pet child, reached over and picked up the hatchet from inside the railing, and pried open the corner of the box.

A gleesome roar of merriment interrupted Bart as he called out the second lot.

The inebriate stood disgustedly looking down at the label on the demijohn he had brought to light: "Bubbly Spring Mineral Water."

Lot 943 was a cardboard box. The suggestion of millinery made the farmer's wife a reckless bidder, and the lot brought two dollars.

Another roar went up from the crowd as she eagerly inspected her purchase. It turned out to be a man's silk hat.

She looked spiteful enough to throw it out of the window, but her husband, laughing at her, doffed his worn straw, coolly put on the elaborate headgear, and became thenceforward a target for the quips of the merry idlers about the door.

An oblong crate brought four dollars. Bob Haven got this. He did not inspect his purchase at once, but with glowing eyes whispered to his brother as he pushed it to one side that he knew it was a new bicycle.

Bart hustled the various packages up for sale and disposition with briskness and dispatch, and Darry was more than busy keeping tab on his record book and piling the cash into the tin box.

One fuming, perspiring man, looking too fat to ever get cool, found the prize he had drawn was a moth-eaten fur overcoat.

Peter Grimm, notoriously the stingiest man in Pleasantville, who raised the sourest apples in the town and spent most of his time watching the boys and picking up what fruit rolled outside of the fence, bided his time with watchful ferret eyes until a promising-looking package came along.

It was bid up pretty high, and the crowd urged him to disclose his treasure, but Grimm was not responsive to any mutual human sentiment and sat down with the package in his lap.

He began a secret inspection, however, gradually working off the paper covering at one end, and with snapping eyes worming his fingers inside the parcel.

Suddenly a sharp click echoed out, followed by a frightful yell.

Grimm sprang to his feet, jumping quickly about and swinging one arm wildly through the air, the parcel dangling from it like a bulldog hanging on to a coat tail.

"Murder!" he screamed. "Take it off! take it off!"

Bart had to step down to the rescue. Peter Grimm had drawn a patent mink trap, and was its first victim. He sneaked from the express office nursing his crushed fingers and kicking his unlucky purchase out into the road.

The pile of unclaimed stuff diminished rapidly. The various purchases were productive of all kinds of fun. Tom Partridge, the colored porter at the hotel, got a case of face powder, and an exquisite traveling man for a lace house drew a pair of rubber boots that would fit a giant.

One man disclosed his purchase to be a setting of eggs. They were packed in cotton and intact, though probably a year old.

"Take them out--take them out," yelled the crowd.

Somebody dropped a piece of wood in the box, and there was a pop. The farmer with the plug hat he-hawed at the top of his voice, the miserable owner of the eggs got mad at him, some words ensued, the farmer started after him, the egg owner ran, once outside fired an egg which struck the smooth, shiny tile with a splatter, and the farmer came back into the express office holding his nose, bareheaded, and looking for his rejected straw head-covering.

Some, however, were more fortunate. Bart encouraged and hurried the bidding on a large crate, the contents of which he easily guessed, as did also Tim Hager, the crippled son of a poor widow. Tim got it for two dollars and twenty-five cents, and it turned out to hold a first-cla.s.s sewing machine.

"Your attention for a few moments, gentlemen," called out Bart as there was a hustle on the part of the audience getting together the ma.s.s of stuff they had bought. "All the unclaimed heavy express matter at Pleasantville was burned up in the fire of July third, but some twenty small parcels were in the safe, and those we will now dispose of."

"Money, jewelry, and such, I suppose?" propounded Lawyer Stebbings, who loaned money at a high rate of interest.

"We make no such representations," responded Bart. "I will say this, that no money packages are among the lot. There may be valuable papers, there may be jewelry--in fact, some of the parcels have a given value up to two hundred dollars--but the express company guarantees nothing and you bid at your own risk."

"Good! let's have a sample," demanded Stebbings. "Can I examine? Ah, thanks."

The crowd pa.s.sed from hand to hand a small well-wrapped package.

"Watch!" hoa.r.s.ely whispered someone.

"Feels like it!" said a second.

Stebbings bid the lot up to four dollars and got it. There was more fun as he unrolled the numerous wrappings of the package to disclose a small metal disc used in a threshing machine.

One purchaser got a gold pen, another a very pretty stick pin.

Lem Wacker had not engaged in the general commotion. He had retained his place on a bench, looking bored, but for some reason sitting out the session, and Bart wondered why.

Baker took a mild interest in what was going on, smiling appreciatively once in a while when Bart made a witty hit or an unusually good sale.

Finally, however, Wacker put up his forefinger as Bart was bidding off a thin wooden box about four inches square.

"Sender: Novelty Jewelry Company, no address," read Bart, "shipped to James Barclay, Millville--not found. This is a promising-looking package. Gentlemen, what am I bid?"

Lem Wacker seemed to have some spare cash, for he paid two dollars for the box, swaggered off with it, and opening it disclosed a very small and neat pocket alarm clock.