After a short period for inspection the auction begins. The Advocate reads the conditions of sale (the whole of the stock on the farm is to be sold without reserve), and then the auctioneer steps up to the top of the mounting-block, while the clerk takes his place at the foot of it, and the farmers form a circle around them. There are the usual facetiæ. “Now, gentlemen, you’ve got the chance of your lives this morning. John Corlett, I know you’ve come to buy up everything, so get your purse-strings loosened. Mr. Lace, thou knows a good beast if anybody on the island does, and there are lashings of them here, I can tell thee.” The first animal to be led out by the guard into the circle of the spectators is a fine milch cow, five years old. Mona remembers that she gave forty pounds for it in the middle of the war. It is knocked down for twenty. “What name?” “John Corlett.” For a long half-hour there are scenes of the same kind. Every fresh beast put up is knocked down at half its value, and always, after the crack of the auctioneer’s hammer, there comes the same name--“John Corlett.” At length Mona’s anger becomes ungovernable. It is conspiracy, collusion! John Corlett has bought up all competitors! She rises from her seat by the fire with the intention of throwing up the window and shouting her protest. But while her hand is on the sash she sees Oskar at the other side of the barbed wire, striding hastily away, and she returns to her seat. The auction goes on for an hour longer. Mona does not look out again, but she hears everything that is said outside, every word, almost every whisper. The farmers are beginning to laugh at the monotony of the proceedings. At length there is a murmur of conversation between the auctioneer and the Advocate, and the auctioneer says, “Very well, if you wish, sir,” whereupon the Advocate raises his voice and cries: “Gentlemen, this is going too far. If I hadn’t announced that the sale would be without reserve I should stop it on my own responsibility. Come now, be Manxmen. What’s doing on you anyway? Is it the war--or what? Men, we all knew old Robert Craine. He is dead. Let us be fair to his only daughter.” After that there is no more laughter, but there is less bidding and the results are the same. The sale, which was expected to last until evening, is over by lunch-time. “Gentlemen,” says the auctioneer, “I thank you for your attendance. It’s just as I expected--John Corlett has bought in all the stock on the farm.” “And much good may it do him,” says the Advocate. “I might have given her more for it without the auction, sir,” says John Corlett. “And so you might, or you should have been d---- well ashamed of yourself.” Then Mona hears the sound of trapesing feet on the avenue and the various voices of people passing under her window. “Serve her right, though! We want no Huns settling here on the island.” “No, nor no good Manx money going over to Germany neither.”