ut and cleaned, my joints were oiled, my
face was washed, and my hands were polished. Altogether I was
overhauled, and when I took my place on the tray with my twenty-one
companions I was altogether a new being, and by no means the least
presentable of the company.

How we quarrelled and wrangled, and shouldered one another on that tray!
There was such a Babel of voices (for each of us had been set going)
that scarcely any one could hear himself speak. Nothing but
recriminations and vituperations rose on every hand.

"Get out of the way, ugly lever," snarled one monstrous hunter watch
near me, big enough for an ordinary clock. "Who do you suppose wants
you? Get out of the way, do you hear?"

"Where to?" I inquired, not altogether liking to be so summarily
ordered about, and yet finding the excitement of a little quarrel
pleasant after two years' monotony.

"Anywhere, as long as you get out of my way. Do you know I'm a hundred
years old?"

"Are you, though?" said I. "People must have had bigger pockets in
those days than they have now!"

This I considered a very fair retort for his arrogance, and left him
snorting and croaking to himself, and bullying some other little
watches, whom, I suppose, he imagined would be more deferential to his
grey hairs than I was.

I was not destined, however, to be left in peace.

"Who are you?" I heard a sharp voice say. Looking round, I saw a
creature with a great eye in the middle of his face, and a long, lanky
hand spinning round and round over his visage.

"Who are _you_, rather?" I replied.

It was evidently what he wanted, for he began at once: "I'm all the
latest improvements--compensation balance and jewelled in four holes;
perfect for time, beauty, and workmanship; sound, strong, and accurate;
with keyless action, and large full-dial second hand; air-tight, damp-
tight, and dust-tight; seven guineas net and five per cent, to
teetotalers. There, what do you think of that?"

"I think," said I, with a laugh, in which a good many others joined,
"that if you're so tight as all that teetotalers had better do without
you."

It will be observed the scenes and company I had been in of late years
had tended to improve neither my temper nor my manners.

In this way we spent most of the day before the auction, and it was
quite a relief early next morning to find ourselves being removed to the
"Central Mart."

It was impossible, however, to resist the temptation