One day, about two years after my arrival at the pawnbroker's shop, an
unusual circumstance happened to break the monotony of my unruffled
existence. This was nothing more nor less than a Clearance Sale. I
must tell you how it happened.
For a week, every night, I saw my master poring over a big account-book
in his parlour, comparing the entries in it with those of his pawn-
tickets, and marking off on one list what articles had been pawned and
redeemed, and on another what had been pawned and still remained
unredeemed. So lengthy and complicated a process was this that it
consumed the entire week. The next week further indications of a coming
change manifested themselves. A printer came to the office with a bill
for approval, worded as follows:--
"Great Clearance Sale! The entire valuable and miscellaneous
unredeemed stock of a pawnbroker will be sold by auction at the
Central Mart, on Monday next, by Mr Hammer. Sale to commence at
twelve o'clock precisely. Catalogues will be ready on Saturday, and
may be had on application."
Thus I, and one or two of my neighbours on the shelf, read as we peeped
through the crack at the printer's proof-sheet.
"`Entire valuable and miscellaneous unredeemed stock!' that's a good bit
of writing," observed a pair of silver sugar-tongs near me; "that means
you and me and the rest, Ticker. Who'd have thought of us getting such
a grand name!"
"Well, it strikes me we, at least I, have been lying here idle long
enough," said I; "it's two years since I came here."
"Bless you, that's no time," said the tongs. "I knew a salt-spoon lay
once ten years before he was put up--but then, you know, we silver
things are worth our money any time."
"Yes," said I, "we are."
The tongs laughed. "You don't suppose I meant you when I talked of
silver things, do you?"
"Of course I am a silver watch."
"You're a bigger muff than I took you for," replied the aristocratic
tongs, turning his hall-mark towards me. It was humiliating. Of course
I ought to have known I was not solid silver, and had no claim to class
myself of the same metal as a genuine silver pair of tongs.
It was but one of many painful lessons I have had during my life not to
give myself airs beyond my station.
These solid silver goods certainly constituted the "upper ten thousand"
of our valuable and miscellaneous community. When the time came for
cataloguing us all, they separated themselves from the rest of us, and
formed a distinct society, having their several names recorded in full
at the head of the list.
What a scene it was the day the catalogue came to our department! I
suffered a further humiliation then by being almost entirely overlooked.
A great tray of silver watches lay on the bench, brought together from
all parts of the shop; and, to my horror, I found I was not among them.
"That's the lot," said the pawnbroker.
"Very good," said the auctioneer, who was making the catalogue; "shall
we take leather bags next?"
"As you please," said my master.
"Hold hard," said the auctioneer, hastily counting the watches on the
tray and comparing the number with a list he held in his hand, "there's
one short."
"Is there? I don't know how that can be."
"You've got twenty-two down here and there's only twenty-one on the
tray."
The pawnbroker looked puzzled.
"Better call over the number," said the auctioneer. So my master called
out the number attached to each watch, and the auctioneer ticked it off
on his list. When the last had been called, he said,--
"Where's Number 2222?"
"Ah, to be sure, that's the one," said the pawnbroker, reaching up to
where I lay, and taking me down; "this one. I'd forgotten all about
him."
Flattering, certainly! and still more so when the auctioneer, surveying
my tarnished and dingy appearance, said, "Well, he's not much of a show
after all. You'd better rub him up a bit, or we shan't get him off hand
at all."
"Very good," said the pawnbroker, and I was handed over forthwith to an
assistant to be cleaned. And much I needed it. My skin was nearly as
black as a negro's, and my joints and muscles were perfectly clogged
with dust. I had a regular watch's Turkish bath. I was scrubbed and
powdered, my works were taken out and cleaned, my joints were oiled, my
face was washed, and my hands were polished. Altogether I was
overhauled, and when I took my place on the tray with my twenty-one
companions I was altogether a new being, and by no means the least
presentable of the company.
How we quarrelled and wrangled, and shouldered one another on that tray!
There was such a Babel of voices (for each of us had been set going)
that scarcely any one could hear himself speak. Nothing but
recriminations and vituperations rose on every hand.
"Get out of the way, ugly lever," snarled one monstrous hunter watch
near me, big enough for an ordinary clock. "Who do you suppose wants
you? Get out of the way, do you hear?"
"Where to?" I inquired, not altogether liking to be so summarily
ordered about, and yet finding the excitement of a little quarrel
pleasant after two years' monotony.
"Anywhere, as long as you get out of my way. Do you know I'm a hundred
years old?"
"Are you, though?" said I. "People must have had bigger pockets in
those days than they have now!"
This I considered a very fair retort for his arrogance, and left him
snorting and croaking to himself, and bullying some other little
watches, whom, I suppose, he imagined would be more deferential to his
grey hairs than I was.