AT AN AUCTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18089, 13 May 1922, Page 8 (Supplement)

AT AN AUCTION.

Have you ever been to an auction ? Tt can be great, fun provided you have no financial interest in the things sold, and, there are books among them, to remain apathetic is impossible. Indeed, in all auctions there is something that stirs the gambling spirit which is latent in most of us, and one has a good' deal of sympathy with Mr. Wardlaw, in James Payn's novel, "By Proxy." Mr. Wardlaw had a passion for pioßng up bargains at auctions, on one occasion becoming the possessor of a gross of tambourines aoquirod in this way,. His wife did not look with favour on these activities. After an interval of six months, believing that her husband had forgotten all about his bargain, she put the tambourines into 'a ealo which she saw advertised, with the result, however, of only adding to her dissatisfaction : —

" What, couldn't you sell them? " "Oh, yes! I/sold them fast enough, bub unfortunately, it wag John that bought them. Bought his own tambourines, my dear, at an advance of a shilling apiece, as I'm a sinful woman." " And does not he know what ho has dono? " "Not a bit of it; and it makes nio so miserable, because I've got to tell him. He says, ' Hero's another grass of tambourines, my dear; a little dearer than the last, I am sorry to say, but it would never do to let tho price go down.' "

Auctions in private houses belong to a different category from those held in salerooms. We cannot gaze without regret at tho scattering of the collected objects that have, made a home, and this feeling is emphasised by most of the novelists who have described such scenes in their pages. Mr. Archibald Marshall, for example, whose " Bank and Riches " begins with a lifelike account of the auction nt Ksmsale, contrasts old Squire Clinton's pain and at fleeing his friend, Lord Meadshire, sold up, with the behaviour of the buyers and the businesslike indifference of the auctioneer :— Now then, gentlemen, we'll go on where wo left off, page twenty-five in the catalogue. From the Blue Boudoir, !/)(. 494. Fine Chippendale Mirror. What offer? Oh, come now, I hope tho good lunch you've enjoyed hasn't blinded your eyes. This is a. collector's piece, gentlemen. Famous waterfall design, Chippendale's l>est period, and not a scratch or a mark on it. Probably bought from the maker himself, and been hanging here ever since. That's better; but let's take the business seriously, gentlemen. We've a lot to go through. One of the things they had to go through was to see Lord Meadshire running up the prices against Armitage Brown's agent, first out of moro waywardness, and then in anger because Amiitago Brown refused, to com© to an arrangement with him about the articles he wished to buy in, until at. last he bid a thousand pounds for Grace Ethiea's iv-o drawings*