"Mad as a March hare!" was his private verdict, as he shook down his
ruffled plumes. To Mary he said ponderously: "Well, upon my soul, my
dear girl, I don't know--I am frankly at a loss what to say. Measured
by every practical standard, the step he contemplates is little short of
suicidal. I fear he will live to regret it."
And Mary, who had not expected anything from John's intervention, and
also knew the grounds for Richard's heat--Mary now resigned herself,
with the best grace she could muster, to the inevitable.
Chapter XII
House and practice sold for a good round sum; the brass plates were
removed from gate and door, leaving dirty squares flanked by screw-holes;
carpets came up and curtains down; and, like rats from a doomed
ship, men and women servants fled to other situations. One fine day the
auctioneer's bell was rung through the main streets of the town; and
both on this and the next, when the red flag flew in front of the house,
a troop of intending purchasers, together with an even larger number of
the merely curious, streamed in at the gate and overran the premises. At
noon the auctioneer mounted his perch, gathered the crowd round him, and
soon had the sale in full swing, catching head-bobs, or wheedling and
insisting with, when persuasion could do no more, his monotonous
parrot-cry of: "Going. . . going . . . gone!"
It would have been in bad taste for either husband or wife to be visible
while the auction was in progress; and, the night before, Mary and the
child had moved to Tilly's, where they would stay for the rest of the
time.
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