"No; he asked me if I had ever seen an auction of a ship's cargo; I said no, I had never seen more nor a Kentuck vendue: he asked me to go along; I'm your man, said I, for I expected there would be smashin work if a whole ship-load was to be sold, for I have seen some very clever little skrimmages at a vendue; well, when we got there, there was boxes and bags all laying in rows, and little troughs laying under them, like them we catch sugar-water in. Some had little long spoons made on purpose to suck sugar with, and some had little augers for boring holes; presently the crier began. '_Seven, seven, seven--eight, eight, eight cents a pound, going, going_,' and smash went the little mallet; 'how many do you take, sir? twenty, or the hundred boxes?' said he. 'Take the hundred,' said a man, that looked like he wasn't worth the powder that would blow him up." "Could you always tell who bid?" "No; they mostly did it by winkin, I believe; sometimes one fellow would grunt this side and another that side; I kept my head bobbin after them first one side and then the other; but whenever I looked in their faces their eyes looked as sleepy as a dog in fly-time, just waitin to snap a fellow that was buzzin about his ears." "Did you find out at last who were the bidders?" "No; they shut up their faces like steel-traps. Once or twice, maybe, I saw a dyin-away wrinkle round a feller's mouth, like the rings in the water when you throw a stone in; but they soon faded away, and they looked as smooth and deceitful as a pool of deep water itself agin." "They tasted and tried the articles, of course, before they bought?" "Yes; some of them had their mouths daubed, like children suckin 'lasses candy; and some of their big noses was stuck full of Bohea tea, outside and in, like old Pete when he's had a good feed of chopped rye and cut straw." "And what sort of a man was the auctioneer?" "Why, his mouth went so fast when he got to '_going, going, going_,' that you couldn't say _stop_, if you had had your mouth fixed; but his face I didn't like at all." "What was there in his face objectionable?" "O! I can't tell exactly, it looked out of all sort of nature; a good deal I don't know howish. One thing I'll be sworn to, you would never see such a one in old Kentuck; there every man wears his Sunday face on week days." "I suppose you mean that the man was disfigured with affectation," said Chevillere. "You've hit it, stranger, you've hit it; that's the very word I wanted to be at, but I couldn't get it out. Well, from the vendue I took a stroll round town, to see the lads and lasses; how they carried their heads in these parts, and maybe to see how they carried on their _sparkin_ in a big town like this; for, to tell you the truth, that's one of the things I never could see how they carried on here." "How did you manage such things in the west? Is there any thing peculiar in your method?"