He looked at the two nickel plates flanking them, once kept bright, but now tarnished, upon which the firm's name in bold black letters still stared at him, at the drawn curtains where "Investment Securities" in gold still uttered their lie; and gazing at these outward signs of deception and fraud, all the varying changes in his own hopes, plans, and opinions for a six months passed in review. And in fancy he leaped back to Rockhaven. He peeped into the store where quaint Jess Hutton fiddled in lieu of company; he was one of the little gathering each Sunday at church there; he saw the quarry with the men at work, the tiny dooryard with Mona watering her flowers, the grand old gorge where the sea waves leaped in, and the cave once carpeted with ferns in his honor, and (most touching of all) the moment he had parted from a timid girl, while the moon, rising out of a boundless ocean, smiled at them. Now, it was a memory of the past, and he, sore at heart, with only a few hundred dollars in the bank, was hunting for news items at so much a line, and the "so much" a mere pittance. Truly, the whirligig of time had made a toy of him! For full five minutes he stood, with sinking spirits, and then passed on. "I'll be at this auction," he thought, "and maybe bid in my old office chair for a keepsake. Besides, it will make an item." He was there on time and found that a considerable crowd had gathered. Most of them were brokers or their clerks who had been in business touch with this defunct firm, and now came to witness its obsequies. Nearly all had been losers in Rockhaven but, as stock gamblers are wont to do, took it good-naturedly and joked one another about being "easy marks" and "good things," and looked at this auction as an excellent object lesson. The auctioneer, quick to catch the spirit of his audience, saw his opening, and with ready wit made the most of it. The office fittings--chairs, desks, tables, etc.--were put up first, and Winn bought his old chair for fifty cents. Then came the pictures; and a framed photograph of Weston, holding the reins over a fine pair of horses, brought a quarter; another of Simmons's steam yacht, a dollar; and then a crayon portrait of Weston, in massive gilt frame, was handed to the auctioneer. "Here we have," he said, "a costly painting of J. Malcolm Weston himself, and how much am I offered? It is, as you observe, an excellent picture of this Napoleon of finance, and certainly cost a hundred dollars. How much for it?" An offer of thirty cents was heard.