Vanity Fair - Page 132/573

It was rather late in the sale. The excellent drawing-room furniture

by the best makers; the rare and famous wines selected, regardless of

cost, and with the well-known taste of the purchaser; the rich and

complete set of family plate had been sold on the previous days.

Certain of the best wines (which all had a great character among

amateurs in the neighbourhood) had been purchased for his master, who

knew them very well, by the butler of our friend John Osborne, Esquire,

of Russell Square. A small portion of the most useful articles of the

plate had been bought by some young stockbrokers from the City. And

now the public being invited to the purchase of minor objects, it

happened that the orator on the table was expatiating on the merits of

a picture, which he sought to recommend to his audience: it was by no

means so select or numerous a company as had attended the previous days

of the auction.

"No. 369," roared Mr. Hammerdown. "Portrait of a gentleman on an

elephant. Who'll bid for the gentleman on the elephant? Lift up the

picture, Blowman, and let the company examine this lot." A long, pale,

military-looking gentleman, seated demurely at the mahogany table,

could not help grinning as this valuable lot was shown by Mr. Blowman.

"Turn the elephant to the Captain, Blowman. What shall we say, sir,

for the elephant?" but the Captain, blushing in a very hurried and

discomfited manner, turned away his head.

"Shall we say twenty guineas for this work of art?--fifteen, five, name

your own price. The gentleman without the elephant is worth five

pound."

"I wonder it ain't come down with him," said a professional wag, "he's

anyhow a precious big one"; at which (for the elephant-rider was

represented as of a very stout figure) there was a general giggle in

the room.

"Don't be trying to deprecate the value of the lot, Mr. Moss," Mr.

Hammerdown said; "let the company examine it as a work of art--the

attitude of the gallant animal quite according to natur'; the gentleman

in a nankeen jacket, his gun in his hand, is going to the chase; in the

distance a banyhann tree and a pagody, most likely resemblances of some

interesting spot in our famous Eastern possessions. How much for this

lot? Come, gentlemen, don't keep me here all day."

Some one bid five shillings, at which the military gentleman looked

towards the quarter from which this splendid offer had come, and there

saw another officer with a young lady on his arm, who both appeared to

be highly amused with the scene, and to whom, finally, this lot was

knocked down for half a guinea. He at the table looked more surprised

and discomposed than ever when he spied this pair, and his head sank

into his military collar, and he turned his back upon them, so as to

avoid them altogether.