Than the auction rooms in the Fifth Avenue district I know of no places better adapted for studying patina, wormholing and human nature in a variety of interesting phases. To such an establishment, on the days when a sale is announced--which means two or three times a week for a good part of the year--repair wealthy patrons, patrons who were wealthy before the mania for bidding in things came upon them, as it does come upon so many, and patrons who are trying to look as though they were wealthy. The third group are in the majority. Amateur collectors come, on the lookout for lace fans or Japanese bronzes or Chinese ceramics or furniture or pictures or hangings or rugs or tapestries, or whatever it is that constitutes their favorite hobby. There are sure to be prominent actor folk and author folk in this category. Dealers are on hand, each as wise looking as a barnful of hoot-owls and talking the jargon of the craft. Agents from rival auction houses are sometimes seen, ready, should the opportunity present itself, to snap up a bargain with intent to reauction it at their own houses at a profit. With the resident proprietor one of this gentry is about as popular as a bat in a boarding school, but since there is no law to bar him out and since it is in the line of business for him to be present, why present he generally is. Rich women drive up in their town cars and shabby purveyors of antique wares from little clutter-hole shops on cross streets at the fringe of the East Side shamble in on their fiat arches. Then, too, there are the habitués of the auction room habit; women mostly, but some men too, unfortunate creatures who have fallen victim to an incurable vice and to whom the announcement in the papers of an unusual sale is lure sufficient to draw them hither whether or not they hope to buy anything; and finally there are representatives of a common class in any big city--individuals who go wherever free entertainment is provided and especially to spots where they are likely to see assembled notables of the stage or society or of high financial circles. The auctioneer almost invariably is of a compounded and composite type that might be described as part matinée idol, part professional revivalist, part floor walker, part court jester and part jury pleader, with just a trace of a suggestion of the official manner of the well-to-do undertaker stirred into the mixture. By sight at least he knows all of his regular customers and is inclined with a special touch of respectful affection toward such of them as prefer on these occasions to be known by an initial rather than by name. “And sold to Mr. B.,” he says with a gracious smile. Or--“Now then, Mrs. H., doesn't this bea-u-tiful varse mean anything to you?” he inquires deferentially when the bidding lags. “Did I hear you offer seven hundred and fifty, Colonel J.?” he asks in a tone of deep solicitude.