"Look out!" hollers the prize-winner, frantic. "You'll drop it!"

Adoniram grunted. "Huh!" says he. "'Tain't nothing but a blue dish. I've got a whole closet full of them."

"WHAT?" yells everybody. And then: "Will you sell 'em?"

"Sell 'em?" says Rogers, looking round surprised. "Why, I never see nothing I wouldn't sell if I got money enough for it."

Then for the next few minutes there was what old Parson Danvers used to call a study in human nature. All hands started for that poor, helpless plate owner as if they was going to swoop down on him like a pa.s.sel of gulls on a dead horse-mack'rel. Then they come to themselves and stopped and looked at each other, kind of shamefaced but suspicious. The d.u.c.h.ess and her crowd glared at the Dowager tribe and got the glares back with compound interest. Everybody wanted to get Adoniram one side and talk with him, and everybody else was determined they shouldn't. Wherever he moved the "Antiquers" moved with him. Milo watched from the side lines.

Rogers got scared.

"Look here," says he, staring sort of wild-like at the boarders. "What ails you folks? Are you crazy?"

Well, he might have made a good deal worse guess than that. I don't know how 'twould have ended if Peter T. Brown, cool and sa.s.sy as ever, hadn't come on deck just then and took command.

"See here, Rogers," he says, "let's understand this thing. Have you got a set of dishes like that?"

Adoniram looked at him. "Will I get jailed if I say yes?" he answers.

"Maybe you will if you don't," says Peter. "Now, then, ladies and gentlemen, this is something we're all interested in, and I think everybody ought to have a fair show. I jedge from the defendant's testimony that he HAS got a set of the dishes, and I also jedge, from my experience and three years' dealings with him, that he's too public-spirited to keep 'em, provided he's paid four times what they're worth. Now my idea is this; Rogers will bring those dishes down here tomorrer and we'll put 'em on exhibition in the hotel parlor. Next day we'll have an auction and sell 'em to the highest cash bidder. And, provided there's no objection, I'll sacrifice my reputation and be auctioneer."

So 'twas agreed to have the auction.

Next day Adoniram heaves alongside with the dishes in a truck wagon, and they was strung out on the tables in the parlor. And such a pawing over and gabbling you never heard. I'd been suspicious, myself, knowing Rogers, but there was the set from platters to sa.s.sers, and blue enough and ugly enough to be as antique as Mrs. Methusalem's jet earrings. The "Antiquers" handled 'em and admired 'em and p'inted to the three holes in the back of each dish--the same being proof of age--and got more covetous every minute. But the joy was limited. As one feller said, "I'd like 'em mighty well, but what chance'll we have bidding against green-back syndicates like that?" referring to the Dowager and the d.u.c.h.ess.

Milo and Eddie was the most worried of all, because each of 'em had been commissioned by their commanding officers not to let t'other family win.

That auction was the biggest thing that ever happened at the Old Home.

We had it on the lawn out back of the billiard room and folks came from Harniss and Orham and the land knows where. The sheds and barn was filled with carriages and we served thirty-two extra dinners at a dollar a feed. The dishes was piled on a table and Peter T. done his auctioneer preaching from a kind of pulpit made out of two cracker boxes and a tea chest.

But there wa'n't any real bidding except from the Smalls and Thompsons.

A few of the boarders and some of the out-of-towners took a shy long at first, but their bids was only ground bait. Milo and Eddie, backed by the Dowager and the d.u.c.h.ess, done the real fishing.

The price went up and up. Peter T. whooped and pounded and all but shed tears. If he'd been burying a compet.i.tion hotel keeper he couldn't have hove more soul into his work. 'Twas, "Fifty! Do I hear sixty? Sixty do I hear? Fifty dollars! THINK of it? Why, friends, this ain't a church pound party. Look at them dishes! LOOK at 'em! Why, the pin feathers on those blue d.i.c.ky birds in the corners are worth more'n that for mattress stuffing. Do I hear sixty? Sixty I'm bid. Who says seventy?"

Milo said it, and Eddie was back at him afore he could shake the reefs out of the last syllable. She went up to a hundred, then to one hundred and twenty-five, and with every raise Adoniram Roger's smile lengthened out. After the one-twenty-five mark the tide rose slower. Milo'd raise it a dollar and Eddie'd jump him fifty cents.

And just then two things happened. One was that a servant girl come running from the Old Home House to tell the d.u.c.h.ess and "Irene dear"

that some swell friends of theirs from the hotel at Harniss had driven over to call and was waiting for 'em in the parlor. The female Smalls went in, though they wa'n't joyful over it. They give Eddie his sailing orders afore they went, too.

The other thing that happened was Bill Saltmarsh's arriving in port.

Bill is an "antiquer" for revenue only. He runs an antique store over at Ostable and the prices he charges are enough to convict him without hearing the evidence. I knew he'd come.

Saltmarsh busts through the crowd and makes for the pulpit. He nods to Peter T. and picks up one of the plates. He looks at it first ruther casual; then more and more careful, turning it over and taking up another.

"Hold on a minute, Brown," says he. "Are THESE the dishes you're selling?"

"Sure thing," comes back Peter. "Think we're serving free lunch? No, sir! Those are the genuine articles, Mr. Saltmarsh, and you're cheating the widders and orphans if you don't put in a bid quick. One thirty-two fifty, I'm bid. Now, Saltmarsh!"

But Bill only laughed. Then he picks up another plate, looks at it, and laughs again.

"Good day, Brown," says he. "Sorry I can't stop." And off he puts towards his horse and buggy.

Eddie Small was watching him. Milo, being on the other side of the pulpit, hadn't noticed so partic'lar.

"Who's that?" asks Eddie, suspicious. "Does he know antiques?"

I remarked that if Bill didn't, then n.o.body did.

"Look here, Saltmarsh!" says Small, catching Bill by the arm as he shoved through the crowd. "What's the matter with those dishes--anything?"

Bill turned and looked at him. "Why, no," he says, slow. "They're all right--of their kind." And off he put again.

But Eddie wa'n't satisfied. He turns to me. "By George!" he says. "What is it? Does he think they're fakes?"

I didn't know, so I shook my head. Small fidgetted, looked at Peter, and then run after Saltmarsh. Milo had just raised the bid.

"One hundred and thirty-three" hollers Peter, fetching the tea chest a belt. "One thirty-four do I hear? Make it one thirty-three fifty. Fifty cents do I hear? Come, come! this is highway robbery, gentlemen. Mr.

Small--where are you?"

But Eddie was talking to Saltmarsh. In a minute back he comes, looking more worried than ever. Peter T. bawled and pounded and beckoned at him with the mallet, but he only fidgetted--didn't know what to do.

"One thirty-three!" bellers Peter. "One thirty-three! Oh, how can I look my grandmother's picture in the face after this? One thirty-three--once!

One thirty-three--twice! Third and last call! One--thirty--"

Then Eddie begun to raise his hand, but 'twas too late.

"One thirty-three and SOLD! To Mr. Milo Thompson for one hundred and thirty-three dollars!"

And just then come a shriek from the piazza; the d.u.c.h.ess and "Irene dear" had come out of the parlor.

Well! Talk about crowing! The way that Thompson crowd rubbed it in on the Smalls was enough to make you leave the dinner table. They had the servants take in them dishes, piece by piece, and every single article, down to the last b.u.t.ter plate, was steered straight by the Small crowd.

As for poor Eddie, when he come up to explain why he hadn't kept on bidding, his wife put him out like he was a tin lamp.

"Don't SPEAK to me!" says she. "Don't you DARE speak to me."

He didn't dare. He just run up a storm sail and beat for harbor back of the barn. And from the piazza Milo cackled vainglorious.

Me and Cap'n Jonadab and Peter T. felt so sorry for Eddie, knowing what he had coming to him from the d.u.c.h.ess, that we went out to see him. He was setting on a wrecked hencoop, looking heart-broke but puzzled.

"'Twas that Saltmarsh made me lose my nerve," he says. "I thought when he wouldn't bid there was something wrong with the dishes. And there WAS something wrong, too. Now what was it?"

"Maybe the price was too high," says I.

"No, 'twa'n't that. I b'lieve yet he thought they were imitations. Oh, if they only were!"

And then, lo and behold you, around the corner comes Adoniram Rogers.

I'd have bet large that whatever conscience Adoniram was born with had dried up and blown away years ago. But no; he'd resurrected a remnant.