and simultaneously taken
aback.

"I beg your pardon," said the auctioneer. "Anybody bid?"

"And fifty," reiterated the voice, which I was now able to trace to
its origin, on the lips of a small, unseemly rag of human-kind. The
speaker's skin was gray and blotched; he spoke in a kind of broken song,
with much variety of key; his gestures seemed (as in the disease called
Saint Vitus's dance) to be imperfectly under control; he was badly
dressed; he carried himself with an air of shrinking assumption, as
though he were proud to be where he was and to do what he was doing,
and yet half expected to be called in question and kicked out. I think I
never saw a man more of a piece; and the type was new to me; I had never
before set eyes upon his parallel, and I thought instinctively of Balzac
and the lower regions of the _Comedie Humaine_.

Pinkerton stared a moment on the intruder with no friendly eye, tore
a leaf from his note-book, and scribbled a line in pencil, turned,
beckoned a messenger boy, and whispered, "To Longhurst." Next moment
the boy had sped upon his errand, and Pinkerton was again facing the
auctioneer.

"Two hundred dollars," said Jim.

"And fifty," said the enemy.

"This looks lively," whispered I to Pinkerton.

"Yes; the little beast means cold drawn biz," returned my friend. "Well,
he'll have to have a lesson. Wait till I see Longhurst. Three hundred,"
he added aloud.

"And fifty," came the echo.

It was about this moment when my eye fell again on Captain Trent.
A deeper shade had mounted to his crimson face: the new coat was
unbuttoned and all flying open; the new silk handkerchief in busy
requisition; and the man's eye, of a clear sailor blue, shone glassy
with excitement. He was anxious still, but now (if I could read a face)
there was hope in his anxiety.

"Jim," I whispered, "look at Trent. Bet you what you please he was
expecting this."

"Yes," was the reply, "there's some blame' thing going on here." And he
renewed his bid.

The figure had run up into the neighbourhood of a thousand when I
was aware of a sensation in the faces opposite, and looking over my
shoulder, saw a very large, bland, handsome man come strolling forth and
make a little signal to the auctioneer.

"One word, Mr. Borden," said he; and then to Jim, "Well, Pink, where are
we up to now?"

Pinkerton gave him the figure. "I ran up to that on my own
responsibility, Mr. Longhurst," he added, with a flush. "I thought