I left Mr Isaacs under the impression that I was not a gentleman, since I fully intended to bid for myself, and steadfastly refused to pay attention to the various eligible lots he kept introducing to my notice as I passed from room to room of the mansion, gradually getting better filled with visitors bound on bargain-seeking errands. "Why, you'll pay dear enough for what you buy, depend upon it," said Retort. "What with brokers and buyers, I don't see much chance for you." "Perhaps not, but look here," I said. "This is how I manage: I get, say in a corner, where I can just see the auctioneer's face, and then taking care not to make much movement or to do anything that will take the enemy's attention, I give him a quiet nod for my bid each time, while seeing that I am a buyer, he always looks out for my nods. Don't you see?" "Just so," said Retort, "a capital plan, no doubt." The sale began, and having obtained a pretty good place, I bid for several little things. Two or three times over I saw that the brokering clique were running them up, but by a judicious bit of management I let them run on, and then left my friends with the last bid, so that they were quite satisfied and let me bid and buy as I liked. I had secured, as the day wore on, several undoubted bargains, amongst which was some of the damask linen which had taken Mrs Scribe's fancy; but the room was insufferably hot and stuffy, and evidently too much for poor Retort, who disappeared. At length the dining-room Turkey carpet came on, and in spite of various shabby parts, I made up my mind to have it for divers reasons, among which I might enumerate its probably going for a song; secondly, durability; thirdly, its eminent respectability, for no one could find fault with a dining-room covered by a Turkey carpet. "Five pun'," said one of the brokers, after the auctioneer's introductory remarks. I nodded. "Five ten--five ten--six--six ten--seven--seven ten--eight ten--nine ten. Nine ten," said the auctioneer, drawing bid after bid from different parts of the room, while, forgetting my nodding system in the excitement of the moment, I stood confessed. Now I had set ten pounds down in my own mind as the price I would go to, and was rather surprised to find how quickly it had reached to "nine ten," as the auctioneer termed it. However, seeing that the carpet was pretty good, and my room large, I thought I would go a little farther, for I must confess to feeling a little spite against the party of Jews who now seemed to be running me up again. So on went the bidding again, till it had reached to fourteen pounds. "Let the gentleman have it," said Mr Isaacs, with a grin. But, no, "fifteen pounds" was bid from somewhere else--evidently by a confederate. "Sixteen," I formed with my mouth. "Seventeen bid," cried the hammer-man. "I will have it," I muttered, "in spite of the scoundrels, for it would cost twenty for a good Brussels, and there's no wear in them."