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38 Marrable magniloquently; "but don't pin me down to five hundred—that's the auction price. I should want a trifle above—if I decided to let the book go out of my own library, that is to say. Probably I should keep it. Well, here we are."

The cab had drawn to the kerb opposite the door of Messrs Gurnard's unpretentious frontage. Mr Marrable piloted his friend into the saleroom and to a vacant chair by the wall, and then went off to watch the fray at closer quarters. Carrados heard the smooth-tongued auctioneer referring to an item as No. 142, and for the next fifty lots he followed the strangely unexciting progress of the sale with his own peculiar speculative interest.

"Lot 191," announced the easy, untiring voice. "An Account of the Newly Discovered Islands, etc." At last the atmosphere pulsed to a faint thrill of expectation. "Unfortunately we had not the book before us when the catalogue was drawn up. Lot 191 is imperfect and is sold not subject to return; a very desirable volume all the same. What may I say for Lot 191, please? An Account, etc., in original leather, faulty, and not subject to return."

As Mr Marrable had indicated, the defective Virginiola occupied a rather special position. Did anyone else want it? was in several minds; and if so, how much did he want it? Everyone waited until at last the question seemed to fine down into: Did anyone want it?

"May I say two hundred guineas?" suggested the auctioneer persuasively.

A large, heavy-faced man, who might have been a cattle-dealer from the North by every indication that his appearance gave, opened the bidding. He, at any