The Auction was held last Wednesday. I didn't attend it, but got Miss
Gore-Langley to run up the price of the portrait as far as seemed
safe, on my behalf, which resulted in Mrs. Petherton getting it for £5
15s. I got the hat, but Mrs. Petherton outbid my agent for the braces.
DEAR FREDDY (I wrote), Wasn't it a roaring success--the Auction, I
mean? I didn't manage to attend, but have heard glowing accounts
from its promoter.
The most insignificant things, I hear, went for big prices; one
patriotic lady, I'm told, even going to £5 15s. for a faded
photograph of a veteran in the clothes of a most uninteresting
sartorial period. It was in a cheap wooden frame, of a pattern
that is quite out of the movement. Fancy, £5 15s.!
Did you buy anything?
In haste,
Yours, H.
If you have any stout safety-pins, lend me a couple, old boy. I failed
to secure the braces. They fetched 1s. 9d., which was greatly in
excess of their intrinsic value.
There has been no reply from Petherton to date.
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