on sales there are always anxious buyers who
make a practice of trying to depreciate ("crabbing," as it is called)
any article or property they particularly wish to purchase, by making
damaging statements or insinuations to anybody whom, they fear, is
also a probable buyer. At a sale of cottage property adjoining a
public-house, in a village not far from Aldington, a keen purchaser
remarked that there was no water on the premises. The auctioneer,
however, knowing that water was not his man's strong point,
immediately replied, "Oh, never mind the water, sir, there's plenty of
whisky to be had next door." At another property sale, the tenant of
the house on offer, gratuitously informed me that the roof was in a
very bad state; knowing my man, I was not surprised when the house was
knocked down to him, but I never saw any repairs to the roof in
progress afterwards.

A friend of mine had a caretaker in an empty house, and, finding that
no applications to view ever got beyond that stage, called at the
house with his wife, ostensibly as intending tenants. He was not
personally known to the caretaker, and on making the usual inquiries,
found the man by no means enthusiastic as to the amenities of the
place, and particularly doubtful as to the drainage, so much so as to
make it plain that any otherwise likely tenant would be repelled.
Knowing that all the sanitary arrangements were in perfect order, he
disclosed his identity, much to the dismay of the caretaker who, of
course, was dismissed.

The person who asks damaging questions of the auctioneer or solicitor
at a property sale, though perhaps not declared the buyer on the fall
of the hammer, not infrequently proves later to have been so, having
employed an agent to bid for him.

At a sale of farm stock and implements I was examining a waggon
practically new, though with no intention of buying, when I was
surprised by a cousin of the vendor volunteering the statement that,
having lately borrowed the waggon, he noticed one of the wheels giving
out a suspicious noise when in use, as if something were wrong. This
was a particularly bad case of "crabbing," as the man eventually
became the purchaser at a high price.

It is an alarming sensation to see one's name on a waggon for the
first time, especially when the vehicle has been wholly repainted in
blue or yellow to represent the owner's supposed political tendencies,
for such was the custom in Worcestershire; but perhaps on