lked of
silver things, do you?"

"Of course I am a silver watch."

"You're a bigger muff than I took you for," replied the aristocratic
tongs, turning his hall-mark towards me. It was humiliating. Of course
I ought to have known I was not solid silver, and had no claim to class
myself of the same metal as a genuine silver pair of tongs.

It was but one of many painful lessons I have had during my life not to
give myself airs beyond my station.

These solid silver goods certainly constituted the "upper ten thousand"
of our valuable and miscellaneous community. When the time came for
cataloguing us all, they separated themselves from the rest of us, and
formed a distinct society, having their several names recorded in full
at the head of the list.

What a scene it was the day the catalogue came to our department! I
suffered a further humiliation then by being almost entirely overlooked.
A great tray of silver watches lay on the bench, brought together from
all parts of the shop; and, to my horror, I found I was not among them.

"That's the lot," said the pawnbroker.

"Very good," said the auctioneer, who was making the catalogue; "shall
we take leather bags next?"

"As you please," said my master.

"Hold hard," said the auctioneer, hastily counting the watches on the
tray and comparing the number with a list he held in his hand, "there's
one short."

"Is there? I don't know how that can be."

"You've got twenty-two down here and there's only twenty-one on the
tray."

The pawnbroker looked puzzled.

"Better call over the number," said the auctioneer. So my master called
out the number attached to each watch, and the auctioneer ticked it off
on his list. When the last had been called, he said,--

"Where's Number 2222?"

"Ah, to be sure, that's the one," said the pawnbroker, reaching up to
where I lay, and taking me down; "this one. I'd forgotten all about
him."

Flattering, certainly! and still more so when the auctioneer, surveying
my tarnished and dingy appearance, said, "Well, he's not much of a show
after all. You'd better rub him up a bit, or we shan't get him off hand
at all."

"Very good," said the pawnbroker, and I was handed over forthwith to an
assistant to be cleaned. And much I needed it. My skin was nearly as
black as a negro's, and my joints and muscles were perfectly clogged
with dust. I had a regular watch's Turkish bath. I was scrubbed and
powdered, my works were taken o