With regret we gave up our futile search and retraced our steps towards the waiting car. We had seated ourselves and were watching the chauffeur, as he bent to crank the machine, when we heard a cry behind us. We turned and saw our guide running at full speed, his arms waving wildly. As he came near he shouted, “There’s just wan chance. I remembered meself that a while ago, there was a lot of old unclaimed and seized stuff sint to the appraiser’s stores to be auctioned off. They’ve been havin’ the sale the day and to-morrer at three. You might find it there.” “We’ll try,” said Tom, and we quickly ran across to the auction. As we stepped inside the room, we saw a motley assembly before us,--junk dealers, Jew peddlers, old clothes men, clerks, buyers of hardware houses, and a few reporters. A lot of fancy door bolts were being sold, and competition was running high. Foremost among the bidders was a woman who was evidently an old acquaintance of the auctioneer’s. She was a queer compromise between the old and the new. On the tight brown wig of the conservative old Jewish matron was set askew a gay lacy hat, such as adorns the head of an East Side belle on a Tammany picnic. Her costume was in harmony with her head gear, consisting of a black skirt, and a flaming red waist trimmed with gorgeous gold embroidery. Her keen eyes twinkled at the badinage of the auctioneer, and her face showed an acumen hard to overcome. One by one the bidders withdrew, till only this woman and another Jew, an old man, were left. The price was mounting by cents, till the last limit of the woman’s purse seemed reached, and she stopped bidding. In vain the auctioneer tried to rouse her to another bid. “Twenty-six, twenty-six. Absolutely thrown away at twenty-six. Come, Mrs. Rosnosky, give me thirty. You can sell the lot for fifty. It’s the chance of your life.” Mrs. Rosnosky was not to be moved. Again the auctioneer appealed in vain and, glancing around him, he reached down beside him and brought up a dusty broken mixture of wires and metals, of cones and cylinders. “Here, Mrs. Rosnosky! Make it thirty, and I’ll throw this in.” As the eyes of my companions lighted on the mass, they started forward. Tom opened his mouth to bid, but, before the words could come from his lips, Mrs. Rosnosky had nodded decisively. Her competitor behind her had shaken his head, and the cry of “Sold to Mrs. Rosnosky at thirty” came through the air. Tom looked at Dorothy expressively, and she nodded back and whispered. “It looks as if it might be the machine. We’ll get it from her.” Clearly Mrs. Rosnosky had obtained all she desired. Motioning to a boy in the rear, she stepped to the clerk’s desk, paid her money, and started to remove her goods by the aid of her helper, paying no attention to the cries and movement about her. We followed the machine as it left the building, and stood on the opposite side of the street, as the boy and the woman filled an old express cart with their purchases.