Mr. Ludlow sighed and ran his long, artist's fingers over his eagle features and brushed back a Byronic lock of hair from his forehead. "It was four years ago we met," he resumed, "in the Wabash Avenue place. I noticed her when the bidding on a rocking chair started. A pretty girl. And as is often the case among women who attend auctions--a bug, a fan, a fish. You know, the kind that stiffen up when they get excited. The kind that hang on your words and breathe hard while you cut loose with the patter, and lose their heads when you swing into the going-going-gone finale. "Well, she didn't get the rocking chair. But she was game and came back on a Chinese rug. I began to notice her considerably. My words seemed to have an unusual effect on her. Then I could see that she was not only the kind of fish that lose their heads at auctions, but the terrible kind that believe everything the auctioneer says. You know, they believe that the Oriental rugs really came from the harem of the caliph and that the antique bed really was the one in which DuBarry slept and that the Elizabethan tablecloth really was an Elizabethan tablecloth. They are kind of goofily romantic and they fall hard for everything and they spend their last penny on a lot of truck, you know. Not bad stuff and probably a good deal more useful and lasting than the originals would have been." * * * * * Mr. Ludlow smiled a bit apologetically. "I'm not confessing anything you don't know, I hope," he said. "Well, to go on about the missus. I knew I had her from that first day. I wasn't vitally interested, but when she returned six days in succession it got kind of flattering. And the way she looked at me and listened to me when I pulled my stuff--say, I could have knocked down a bouquet of paper roses for the original wreath worn by Venus, I felt so good. That's how I began to think that she was an inspiration to me and how I figured that if I could have somebody like her around I'd soon have them all pocketed as auctioneers. "I forget just how it was we met, but we did. And I swear, the way she flattered me would have been enough to turn the head of a guy ten times smarter than me and forty times as old. So we got married. That's skipping a lot. But, you know, what's it all amount to, the courting and the things you say and do before you get married? So we got married and then the fun started. "At first I could hardly believe what the drift of it was. But I hope to die if she wasn't sincere in her ideas about me as an auctioneer. I didn't get it, as I say, and that's where I made my big mistake. I let her come to the auctions and told her not to bid. But when I'd start my patter on some useless piece of 5-and l0-cent store bric-a-brac and give it an identity and hint at Count Rudolph's collection and so on, she was off like a two-year-old down a morning track.