"One hundred dollars," he said, "one hundred offered for this property, cheap at two thousand! What are you thinking of?"
Then, after a pause, while he waited another bid, he continued: "One hundred I'm offered for this splendid piece of real estate, with all its improvements; for this matchless quarry of pink granite, once called worth a million! Why, gentlemen, have you gone daft? Don't you know a good thing when you see it? It wasn't so long ago when I heard some of you eagerly bidding thirty and forty dollars for a single share in this immense property, and now you won't raise a bid of one hundred dollars for its total valuation! Is this business? Is this finance? Come, gentlemen, wake up and buy this rich ledge of valuable granite, going for a song! Think of what it has seemed to you; what might again be made out of it! Think of the thousands of dupes still anxious to buy fairy tales and pay money for them! Think of the money you have lost in this one!
"And I am offered one hundred dollars for it! One hundred once, one hundred twice, one hundred three times, and--sold!"
And that auctioneer, really disgusted this time, stepped down and handed the deed to Winn.
Winn wrote a check for that amount, and utterly unconscious of how valuable a purchase he had made, put the deed in his pocket, and left the crowd.
In a way, the whole affair had seemed much like a burlesque on a funeral, and he a mourner. When the rest had laughed at the auctioneer's sallies, no smile came to him, and he bid feeling that he was likely to obtain a white elephant.
That night, in the solitude of his room, he came near writing a farewell letter to Mona and enclosing this deed as a keepsake. Only pride restrained him.
One evening, a few weeks after the auction, Winn, in his new occupation, was detailed to report one of those affairs in high life where wealth gathered to display its gowns, and fops, in evening dress, uttered flattering nothings to beauty in undress. A crush of fashionable people who ate, drank, danced, simpered, and smirked until the wee small hours and then went home to curry one another's reputation and conduct.
Winn, not in the swim, was made duly welcome by virtue of his errand there, and, furnished with a list of the ladies' names and costumes by the hostess (not forgetting her own), was about to depart when he was accosted by Ethel Sherman.