For a moment she thought gleefully that the horse was to be hers at that—for nobody there seemed in quest or in need of carriage horses—but under the auctioneer’s scoff a few bargain-hunters soon raised it to twenty, and then to Jinny’s alarm—for her margin was getting dangerously narrow—to twenty-four. At twenty-five the bargain-hunters fell off, and a new voice intervened—a husky voice that seemed to mean business, and whose every counter-bid filled her with dismay. At its twenty-eight pounds the auctioneer still upheld his stick with scorn and incredulity. She was almost at her bids’ end. “Twenty-nine pounds,” she cried crushingly. This time the voice seemed indeed silenced. She fully expected the stick to fall. But at the first “Going,” though there had been no sound, the auctioneer cried cheerily, “Thirty pounds.” Evidently somebody else had nodded or held up a finger. Inflamed by the fever of the struggle, she was impelled to risk even her own earnings, if Flippance would not go so far. “Thirty-one pounds,” she cried ringingly. “Thirty-one pounds,” echoed the auctioneer with a promising accent of finality. “Thirty-two pounds,” he added instantly, and this silent competition was even more crushing than the huskiest bid. It put out her flame of recklessness, and her heart sank with the stick, as despite all the auctioneer’s derisory deprecation, that wooden finger of fate fell finally at this truly absurd figure. Then the name of the unseen silent buyer transpired. “Mr. William Flynt!” proclaimed a familiar voice. A blaze of positive hatred ran through all Jinny’s being. The brute! The obstinate pig! To come interfering with her daily work, with her bread and butter! To ride his will roughshod over hers! And not only roughrider, but coward, sneak, traitor! Had he not wormed and wheedled out of her the limit of her commission and thus romped in, an easy winner! And he would take his purchase to Mr. Flippance, she supposed. Yes, he was already paying in full—she saw him now, near one of the clerks, drawing a pocket-book out of the region of his black heart; he was in a hurry, he would hasten with the animal to Tony Flip. But not so fast, O dashing young man from Canada! Flippance is a man of honour, he will repudiate the purchase. And the second hackney still remains. The biter is bit—the pit you have digged shall engulf you.