“Of course, there are always a few invitations to be had, if you want them bad enough,” said Geordie, with the air of rectitude which becomes a man whose invitation is strictly legitimate.

“How do you get them?” said Hector.

“It’s entirely a matter of money.”

“Yes; I expected that. Who has them?”

“Well, don’t tell anybody I told you, but Pimples Buckle always has a few.”

Hector had not been permitted, at his first visit, to see Pimples himself. He had talked with a dark, greasy young man, who wore sidewhiskers and a dirty sweatshirt, in the office of Uneeda Taxi, which was the legitimate part of Pimples’ business. Unwillingly he had revealed to the young man what he wanted, and the young man had chewed a match and looked at him with scorn.

“Ain’t no use talkin’ to Pimples now,” he had said. “Come back the day before the dance.”

“You’ll tell him what I want?”

“Yeah.”

“Shall I ‘phone him before I come in?”

“Naw. Pimples don’t like the ‘phone. Don’t be a dope. And bring cash.”

“How much?”

“Dunno. Better bring plenty.”

At half past four on the day before the ball Hector stood in the inner office of Uneeda Taxi, and Pimples Buckle sat with his feet on a rolltop desk.

“Well prof,” said he, “so you want a ticket to the Big Ball.”

“Yes,” said Hector.

“What’s the matter? Did yours get lost in the mail?”

“I have no invitation. That’s why I’m here.”

“Oh, so that’s why you’re here, eh? Funny, I was wondering what brought you.”

“I supposed you knew. I left a message with your man outside.”

“Wop? Yeah, he told me you’d been in. But what I want to know is this: what makes you think I’ve got any tickets, eh?”

“Somebody said you usually had a few.”

“Jeeze, the stories that get around. Why, prof, don’t you know I could get into a lotta trouble selling tickets to the Ball? And you’d get in trouble too; you’d be an accessory after the fact, and you’d be compounding a felony, and Jeeze knows what else.”

“Have you any tickets?”

“Not so fast, prof. You remember me, don’t you?”

“Yes, I remember you.”

“Yeah, you was new at the school the last year I was there. I was in one of your classes. Algebra. And you remember what you used to tell us? Take it easy, you used to say; just take it easy. Well, prof, you take it easy now. Would you like to sit down?”

“Thank you, I would.”

“Well, you can’t because there ain’t no chair.” Pimples chuckled with enjoyment. “Now, prof, why do you want to go to this Ball?”

“Is that any affair of yours?”

“I’ll say it is. You don’t look the type, somehow. Who’s the broad?”

“The—?”

“The dame. What’s a guy like you want to go to the Ball for if it ain’t to take some dame? You want to romance her under the stars, prof?”

“If you will sell me a ticket, let’s do it now.”

“Jeeze, you’re touchy. Most fellows your age would be complimented to think somebody thought they was after a dame. Are you getting plenty of what she’s got?”

“What is your price?”

“Very special to you prof. Fifty bucks. I always treat my old teachers right.”

“Fifty!”

“Sure. This ain’t no two-bit belly-rub you’re going to, y’know.”

Sick with humiliation and outraged prudence, Hector counted out five ten-dollar notes. Pimples reached into an inner pocket and produced an envelope, from which he drew an engraved and crested card in the upper left-hand corner of which was written, in an official hand, “Hector Mackilwraith, Esq.”

“Make sure you get your fifty bucks worth outa the broad,” he said, winking cheerily, as Hector hurried from the room.

There was a very good crowd at the auction, which was gratifying to young Mr Maybee, for he had worked hard to persuade old Mr Elliot that the day of the Ball was a good day to hold it. Mr Elliot, product of a more leisurely age, had insisted that every woman of the sort who might be expected to attend the sale of a professor’s effects would be at home on such an afternoon, lying in a darkened room with pads of cotton soaked in ice-water upon her eyes. Mr Maybee had assured his partner that, on the contrary, all of Salterton would be keyed up and eager for amusement, and what was more amusing than an auction in June? He had carried his point, and here was the crowd to prove it. The morning sale, when the bedroom furnishings and kitchen effects had been sold, had been successful; the goods had brought within fifty dollars of what he had privately estimated, and he congratulated himself on good selling and good reckoning. This afternoon he hoped to do a little better than his estimate. Like an actor, or a concert performer, he put out his feelers—his sensitive auctioneer’s antennae—to receive intuitions from his audience. It was a good audience, alert, receptive to suggestion, and sufficiently excited by the thought of the approaching Ball to be ready to bid freely. After a few deep breaths to refresh his voice, Mr Maybee stepped upon his auctioneer’s rostrum, and looked out over the lawn at the bidders, the curiosity seekers, the amateurs of auctions, some standing, some perched on shooting sticks. He rapped upon the table with his pencil, and promptly at two o’clock the afternoon sale began.

It was not, Mr Maybee recognized, a great sale. Old Dr Savage had owned no treasures. His furniture had been very good in its time, but like many people who live to a great age, the old scholar had become indifferent to his household belongings; Mr Maybee’s trained eye told him that nothing of consequence in the house had been bought after 1925; most of the furnishing had been done about 1905. The leather chairs had scuffed, scabby surfaces; a velvet-covered sofa, upon which the Doctor had taken his afternoon nap for many years, showed all too plainly at one end that he had done so with his boots on, and at the other that he had drooled as he slept. The furniture seemed to have died with its owner; chairs which had looked well enough in the house showed weak legs when held up for sale; water-colours which had looked inoffensive on the walls seemed, on this sunny day, to be all of weak and ill-defined blues and greys, like old men’s eyes. But Mr Maybee was not discouraged. He knew what people would buy.

To the surprise of everyone except Mr Maybee, the large pieces of furniture went cheap, and the trinkets went dear. A large and ugly oak dining table, with ten chairs and a hideous sideboard, went for forty-five dollars; a tea-wagon brought forty-two. A couple of lustre jugs, which Valentine could not remember seeing before, fetched the astonishing sum of thirty-six dollars for the pair. The silver sold well, for though it was ugly, it was sterling. A mantel clock, presented to Dr Savage thirty years before by the Waverley Philosophical Society, brought a staggering initial bid of fifty dollars, and went at last for eighty, though it had never been known to keep time. A kitchen clock, which Mr Maybee waggishly announced would keep either Standard or Daylight Saving Time, was sold to an Indian from a nearby reservation for six dollars, which was four dollars more than it was worth. A bundle of walking-sticks was sold to a sentimentalist who had learned a little elementary philosophy from the Doctor many years before, for five dollars. A Bechstein piano which had belonged to Valentine’s grandmother was bid for briskly after Mr Maybee had played a spirited polka on it, and brought three hundred dollars. A teak workbox, described by Mr Maybee as the life’s work of a life prisoner in the nearby penitentiary, brought a beggarly four dollars, which the auctioneer mentally estimated to be about ten cents for every pound of its weight.