Then there is a palisade of tables made in the best drawing-room; and on the capital, french-polished, extending, telescopic range of Spanish mahogany dining-tables with turned legs, the pulpit of the Auctioneer is erected; and the herds of shabby vampires, Jew and Christian, the strangers fluffy and snuffy, and the stout men with the napless hats, congregate about it and sit upon everything within reach, mantelpieces included, and begin to bid. Hot, humming, and dusty are the rooms all day; and—high above the heat, hum, and dust—the head and shoulders, voice and hammer, of the Auctioneer, are ever at work. The men in the carpet caps get flustered and vicious with tumbling the Lots about, and still the Lots are going, going, gone; still coming on. Sometimes there is joking and a general roar. This lasts all day and three days following. The Capital Modern Household Furniture, etc., is on sale.
Then the mouldy gigs and chaise-carts reappear; and with them come spring-vans and wagons, and an army of porters with knots. All day long, the men with carpet caps are screwing at screwdrivers and bed-winches, or staggering by the dozen together on the staircase under heavy burdens, or upheaving perfect rocks of Spanish mahogany, best rosewood, or plate-glass, into the gigs and chaise-carts, vans and wagons. All sorts of vehicles of burden are in attendance, from a tilted wagon to a wheelbarrow. Poor Paul’s little bedstead is carried off in a donkey-tandem. For nearly a whole week, the Capital Modern Household Furniture, etc., is in course of removal.
At last it is all gone. Nothing is left about the house but scattered leaves of catalogues, littered scraps of straw and hay, and a battery of pewter pots behind the hall-door. The men with the carpet-caps gather up their screwdrivers and bed-winches into bags, shoulder them, and walk off. One of the pen-and-ink gentlemen goes over the house as a last attention; sticking up bills in the windows respecting the lease of this desirable family mansion, and shutting the shutters. At length he follows the men with the carpet caps. None of the invaders remain. The house is a ruin, and the rats fly from it.
Mrs. Pipchin’s apartments, together with those locked rooms on the ground-floor where the window-blinds are drawn down close, have been spared the general devastation. Mrs. Pipchin has remained austere and stony during the proceedings, in her own room; or has occasionally looked in at the sale to see what the goods are fetching, and to bid for one particular easy chair. Mrs. Pipchin has been the highest bidder for the easy chair, and sits upon her property when Mrs. Chick comes to see her.
“How is my brother, Mrs. Pipchin?” says Mrs. Chick.
“I don’t know any more than the deuce,” says Mrs. Pipchin. “He never does me the honour to speak to me. He has his meat and drink put in the next room to his own; and what he takes, he comes out and takes when there’s nobody there. It’s no use asking me. I know no more about him than the man in the south who burnt his mouth by eating cold plum porridge.”
This the acrimonious Pipchin says with a flounce.
“But good gracious me!” cries Mrs. Chick blandly. “How long is this to last! If my brother will not make an effort, Mrs. Pipchin, what is to become of him? I am sure I should have thought he had seen enough of the consequences of not making an effort, by this time, to be warned against that fatal error.”
“Hoity toity!” says Mrs. Pipchin, rubbing her nose. “There’s a great fuss, I think, about it. It ain’t so wonderful a case. People have had misfortunes before now, and been obliged to part with their furniture. I’m sure I have!”
“My brother,” pursues Mrs. Chick profoundly, “is so peculiar—so strange a man. He is the most peculiar man I ever saw. Would anyone believe that when he received news of the marriage and emigration of that unnatural child—it’s a comfort to me, now, to remember that I always said there was something extraordinary about that child: but nobody minds me—would anybody believe, I say, that he should then turn round upon me and say he had supposed, from my manner, that she had come to my house? Why, my gracious! And would anybody believe that when I merely say to him, ‘Paul, I may be very foolish, and I have no doubt I am, but I cannot understand how your affairs can have got into this state,’ he should actually fly at me, and request that I will come to see him no more until he asks me! Why, my goodness!”
“Ah!” says Mrs. Pipchin. “It’s a pity he hadn’t a little more to do with mines. They’d have tried his temper for him.”
“And what,” resumes Mrs. Chick, quite regardless of Mrs. Pipchin’s observations, “is it to end in? That’s what I want to know. What does my brother mean to do? He must do something. It’s of no use remaining shut up in his own rooms. Business won’t come to him. No. He must go to it. Then why don’t he go? He knows where to go, I suppose, having been a man of business all his life. Very good. Then why not go there?”
Mrs. Chick, after forging this powerful chain of reasoning, remains silent for a minute to admire it.
“Besides,” says the discreet lady, with an argumentative air, “who ever heard of such obstinacy as his staying shut up here through all these dreadful disagreeables? It’s not as if there was no place for him to go to. Of course he could have come to our house. He knows he is at home there, I suppose? Mr. Chick has perfectly bored about it, and I said
