UNDER THE HAMMER

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 247, 16 July 1935, Page 2

UNDER THE HAMMER

The Auctioneer and His Stentorian Art CAJOLING THE BIDDER How many persons among the thousands who have visited a city auction room when the hammer is rapping through the lots have appreciated to the full the art of the auctioneer’' Entertainment is to be had from listening to his cajoleries, blandishments, exhortations, pleadings; comedy is to be found in the reactions of his audience. An hour or two spent with this Stentor among men and with the habitual and casual “droppers-iu” upon the scene of his exertions is an afternoon well spent. The curtain rises upon Stentor on ( his tribunal, hammer in one hand, catalogue of his dispensations in the other, upon a handful of assistants ready to assist him in exciting the desires of the crowd, ajid upon the crowd itself. Stentor opens the entertainment. “The same old conditions of sale will hold,” he says, in his one-man overture, to introduce the auction atmosphere. “Pay cash for all articles, and everything is guaranteed according to the advertisement.” “What have we here?” he asks, as the first lot—a travelling rug—is brought forth by his amanuensis. “What have we here? A rug, the very thing for a cold day. A beautiful rug, a tip-top travelling rug. If you’re going to stop a long time buy it to put over your knees. What am I bid? What am I bid—s/-? Three half-crowns? Come on, come on, you’re pretty hot to start with, aren’t you? Real merino, it is, real merino, and I’m offered three half-crowns.”

"Three half-crowns,” he repeats incredulously. “Well, if you don’t want it you don’t want it. Put it away, George. They don’t want it.” A dressing-gown is produced. A touch of reverence creeps into Stentor’s voice as he enlarges upon its qualities. He shrills up to a crescendo of praise, a magniloquent encomium, but not; even his description of the dressinggown, as “one of those wrestlers’ dress-ing-gowns,” will win a bid. He passes on regretfully to an attache case and a pair of shoes, and after a frenzied oration knocks them down for 6/-. Twelve spoons and forks receive his full attention. He catches a bid for half-a-crown.

“A real good lot of cutlery,” he says. “About twenty shillings’ worth here going for half-a-crqwn. Out it goes there for half-a-crown. A real good buy going there for 2/6. I’ll take 3/-. Come on, I want 3/- the lot. I don’t know what on earth’s the matter with you. Spoons at 21d. each. They’re cheap! They’re being thrown at you! All right, out it goes for half-a-crown.”

After failing to have the true merits of a leather coat, a watch or so, a pair of boots, a banjo and a lacquer tea set recognised, Stentor becomes reproachful.

“At one time in a day’s sale we used to take from £2OO to £300,” he tells his unresponding audience. "Now'we take about £3 and then we are lucky. Come on, now, here’s a fine pair of boots, size seven, a beautiful pair of boots. Eight shillings? Heavens alive, they would cost you more than that to have them soled.”

His audience sit stolidly. One or two of them handle a few of the lots, hue none of them displays much interest. A man who has won a crystal fruit bowl and two scent bottles for half-a-crown. collects his purchase self-consciously, and begins to wonder what his wife will say, when he presents them to her. He hopes that she will not discover where they came from. But a bargain is a bargain, he consoles himself.

The performance continues. Stentor on’ the tribunal is perspiring now from his vocal exertions, but his voice has not lost its volume, nor his panegyrics their superlatives. He coaxes and hepleads, he pours the vials of his wrath upon an audience which cannot see what sacrifices he is making; he scorns them for their unresponsiveness, and then he goes on to greater efforts and knocks “Half-a-dozen Al quality dessert spoons and half-a-dozen Al quality table spoons, and a crystal dish.” down for £l. “I should think you would,” he says, when at last he has raised the bidding to that price. “I should think you would. I’m hawking them, that’s what I’m doing, absolutely hawking them.” And so. the entertainment continues, with one man doing all the work. Lunch time comes and goes, and still he leans from his box, persuading and exhorting, until at last everything he can sell is sold, and his audience diminishes one by one, until at last it is of no use to supplicate any longer, and he climbs down from his pedestal to compare notes of the day with George and shake his head over the stupidity of persons who cannot appreciate bargains when they’re offered to them. And the audience? The audience go home satisfied. If they have not bought anything they have assisted in a notable combat between a man who wanted to sell things at his price and persons who would only buy at theirs.