[-150-]
AT A "KNOCKING OUT"
No. 44, in our row, where the late Mr. Tatters resided, was, one time o' day,
the envy of the entire neighbourhood. The green railings enclosing the front
garden were never allowed to appear in a coat of paint in the least degree
shabby, the garden itself was a little paradise of red gravel rolled to the
gloss and smoothness of ironed linen, and trim box borders and flowering plants
of every sort and variety; the window curtains were matchless, the windows
bright as a brook. As for Tatters' doorsteps, whether it was solely due to the
superior skill of Tatters' housemaid or to a peculiar sort of heatthstone known
only to a select few, certain it is that, whatever the state of the weather,
they were a reproach to all others, left and right, and on the other side of the
road.
What Mr. Tatters was, was not generally known. That he was
something in the City was beyond a doubt, since precisely at half-past nine in
the morning he appeared at his gate to await the coming of the Balham bus, the
destination of which was the Bank, and precisely at half-past four in the
afternoon Mrs. Tatters might be observed at the parlour window, confidently
looking out for the return of her lord by the same vehicle. Mr. Tatters enjoyed
the reputation of being very well-to-do. The fishmonger and poulterer, as well
as the butcher, called every morning for orders, and the pastrycook's boy could
have found his way to Laurel Cottage blindfold. Erard's people had been seen to
deliver a harp there. Young Tatters rode out on a pony, and often of afternoons
the same animal was attached
[-151-] to a basket
phaeton to draw Mrs. Tatters and the two youngest girls round the country for an
hour or so. About August the window-blinds would be lowered, to rise no more for
the space of six weeks, during which time the Tatters family was at Ventnor or
Broadstairs. These little matters had been maturely considered by the matrons of
our row, together with the probable cost, and the conclusion arrived at was that
Mr. Tatters' income was as near five hundred a year as possible.
Just after Christmas of the present year, however, there were
evidences of something amiss at 44. Morning after morning half-past nine came
round, and the Balham bus came down the hill and passed on innocent of Mr.
Tatters. "What's come of the gent in the white 'at, Bill?" asked the
driver of the conductor ; "he ain't rid with us this fortnite."
"Ill, I shouldn't wonder; thought he looked shaky last time I set him
down." "Oh! that's all right then, I was afraid the opposition had
nailed him." And the driver, with his mind relieved, gives "the gent
with the white 'at " no further thought.
The conductor was right. Poor Mr. Tatters is shaky indeed.
The doctor's carriage is daily at the door of Laurel Cottage as punctually as
the baker's cart, and the door-knocker wears a kid glove. This for two months or
thereabouts, and then the doctor's carriage is seen at the door twice as often
as the baker's cart. This for still a further two months, during which the
knocker has worn out two pairs of gloves at least. Then comes a time when it
would almost seem that the doctor had made a wager as to the number of times he
can drive to and from between his own residence and Laurel Cottage from
breakfast time till dusk - arriving at the close of the last heat with two other
doctors in their carriages as though the waste of a moment would lose him his
stake. Next morning the doctor does not call at all, and the blinds are down at
all the front windows, just after the August fashion, and the neighbours know
that the poor gentleman has gone out of town for good and all.
[-152-] They
buried him in so handsome a manner as to give grounds for the rumour that he had
left his widow and five children very comfortable. But this was a mistake. On
the contrary, he had left them exceedingly uncomfortable. He had been one of
those easy-going, generous-minded men, content so that he grew grass enough for
the present browsing of his little flock, and with no thought at all towards
haymaking. He might have grown more thrifty and grudging by-and-by, but he was
only thirty-seven when he died. That four months' long sickness had, on Dr.
Balsam's account alone, exhausted the Tatters exchequer and butcher and baker,
and tinker and tailor remained unpaid; and there were summonses in the house for
poor's-rate and income tax, and thirty-one pounds ten due on the score of rent.
It was inevitable what would happen. All that poor Mrs.
Tatters possessed in the world was the furniture of her house - (how the
funeral expenses were met there were the pawnbroker's tickets for "two gold
watches and chains, seven finger rings, twelve silver forks," &c.,
&c., to prove) - and that the butcher and the baker and the house agent
clamoured for. It was a very capital house of furniture, and first and last had
cost the late Mr. Tatters more than seven hundred pounds. It might reasonably be
expected that sold at auction property of this value would fetch at least two
hundred pounds, which would leave the widow exactly sixty-five pounds, all debts
paid, and with which modest surplus the butcher suggested that she might open a
little school or something.
In a few days there was a breadth of stair-carpet drooping
out of the second-floor window at No. 44, to which a placard was affixed
announcing the sale; and knowing poor Tatters as a man of some taste, I procured
a catalogue and marked a few articles that might be worth while bidding for.
There was no mistaking the house. Besides the Kiddermninster
banner floating from the window, there was drawn up [-153-]
in front of 44 and extending to 49 on one side and 38 on the other, a
line of shabby trucks and carts, the horses in which had their nose-bags on,
making it clear that they were destined to stay there some little time. The gate
was open, as was the street door, and lounging on the miraculous steps, and
within the neat hall, were groups of unclean men with battered hats and green
baize aprons, who looked as though their sole feeding was mouldy corn, and.
their bedding the mildewing stalks of it. What their business at the sale was
did not appear, since a threshing of their united pockets would not have yielded
half-a-crown, but there they were, and at such places they are always to be
found. The auctioneer's porters don't like them, and warn them off just as
frequently as they encounter them, but they only turn tail for a yard or so, and
then recluster in the passages and on the kitchen stairs.
The sale at Laurel Cottage took place in the parlour, with
the folding doors thrown open. The auctioneer was perched with his pulpit atop
of a table, and four or five other tables in a row formed a convenient platform
for the display of the article at the moment "under the hammer." I
found that many of poor Tatters' neighbours besides myself were present, and
every one, I have no doubt, willing to give a reasonable price for such goods as
suited them. But, alas for the widow and her five children! there were likewise
present in mighty force a host of shabby wretches, with dirty shirts, and dirty
faces, and dirty hands; and their business there was to conspire to
bamboozle and deceive honest buyers, and to cheat Mrs. Tatters out of as much of
the value of her furniture as possible. My knowledge of this gentry is not
restricted to my opportunity for observing their practices that afternoon. I
know them of old, at horse sales and wine sales, and sales of Custom House
rummage, but it never before entered my head in my small way to expose the
dodgers. Maybe I never met a case in which their machinations worked so cruelly.
[-154-] Shabby and hungry as the
members of the Jewish pack appear, they have money in their pockets. It is not
very unlikely that they will want it, but they may, and it would not do to be
without a pound or so. Their prime capital, however, is unscrupulous lying and
impudence of so gross and disgusting a sort that decent people dare not face it,
and prefer, from the same reason that they decline to touch pitch, to leave the
company or remain silent. " Knockers out" these fellows are called,
and they manage their business systematically. They do not group together, but
distribute themselves amongst the bona fide bidders, pretending to act in
a perfectly independent manner. The "knocker out" is very
communicative to the people about him, rather boasting than otherwise of his
acuteness as a dealer, and talking as Jewish as possible. There are some rare
things going, he believes, but all that is worth buying will be bought by the
trade. "Don't you see how it is ? People who have got to pick up their
living at sales take more trouble than private buyers. It wasn't his luck to
come yesterday and look through the house, but there is old Marks over there,
and Hookey Barnet, and Phillips from Dog Row; they were here all day yesterday,
and there isn't a stick nor a rag in the place that they haven't handled, and
know the value of to a penny. There's one precious good job they are such close
shavers that a man with any conscience at all can always bid a shilling or two
over them!" This is Mr. Solomons who says this, and meanwhile Hookey
Barnet over yonder is confiding the same yarn to his innocent neighbour, only
that he is the unlucky man who couldn't get as far as Balham to the
private view yesterday, and Solomons is one of the close shavers, who has valued
every stick and rag; and so the pretty story goes round.
"Lot 28," says the auctioneer,
"is an inlaid worktable and a velvet-covered settee ; what shall I say for
lot 28? Ten shillings, eleven, twelve, twelve, twelve, twelve any advance upon
[-155-] twelve?" (Mr. Phillips' was the last bid.) "Why,
gentlemen! the worktable is worth twice the money!" "
Thirteen," exclaims a timid voice, whereon muffled voices in various parts
of the room are heard to titter, and Mr. Phillips exclaims, "Knock it down,
sir! let the gentleman have 'em; he'll have time to examine 'em when he gets 'em
home." "Going for thirteen shillings!" cries Mr.
Auctioneer. Mr. Solomons intimates another shilling by a nod imperceptible to
any one but the keen man of the rostrum. "Fourteen! going at
fourteen!" The timid bidder of thirteen shillings is glad to have
escaped the threatened peril, and the lot is knocked down to Mr. Solomons.
Lot 20 is a feather bed and pillows. Next to blankets
nothing has greater attractions for a furniture-dealer than a feather bed.
Honestly the bed in question is well worth five pounds. As it is pitched down on
to the platform Mr. Marks pinches up a great handful of it, and, shrugging his
shoulders, turns away, muttering "Rubbish!" Mr. Barnet, on the other
side, hooks his finger in at a seam, and tearing a rent, plunges in his fist and
playfully remarks, " Oh, yes they is feathers! Ain't there a
shuttlecock maker here as vill bid for it?" "I shall give you a
pound for it, and chance it," cries Mr. Marks. "Twenty-five,"
from Mr. Solomons. " Twenty-six," from Mr. Barnet. "More fool
you," exclaims Mr. Davis, "it'll cost ten bob washin' and purifying
before it can be used." "Only twenty-six shillings for a perfectly
clean goose feather bed," says Mr. Auctioneer, "clean as a new bed, I
assure you." But it is of no use; visions of small-pox and fever fill the
minds of the majority present (they know there has recently been a burial from
the house), and the feather bed is knocked down at twenty-six shillings.
Lots 30 and up to 35 are of a sort that the Jews have no
fancy for, and these they willingly let strangers buy. Still nothing like a fair
price is obtained. The Jews have, as it were, set the market, and the bids are
ruinously low; but there is no reserve, [-156-] and
down goes the hammer. Then comes a lot that they, the Jews, will buy if they can
get it next to nothing; if not, the buyer who dares come between them and their
spoil shall suffer. Say it is a chimney clock of Swiss make, and not valuable.
"Ten shillings," says Mr. Moses. " Twenty," says a stranger,
attracted by the pretty brass works and handsome glass case. The bidder is a
troublesome one, and more than once has nearly baulked the Jews of a bargain.
The wink goes round - the stranger must be "run up." Mr. Abrahams
examines the clock closely, and deliberately bids thirty shillings.
"Thirty- five," cries Mr. Marks. "Forty," promptly exclaims
Abrahams. The stranger falls into the trap. Clearly the clock is worth more than
he thought. "Forty-five," he bids. " Fifty," says Mr.
Abrahams, with his hand eagerly laid on the clock, and his eye on the
auctioneer, as though terribly anxious to secure the gem. The stranger
hesitates; shall he lose it for the sake of half-a-crown? "Going for two
pounds ten!" exclaims Mr. Auctioneer, raising his hammer. "Two
twelve six," says the stranger. "Going for two twelve six!" and
down goes the hammer. The stranger is bit. A roar of laughter from the
Israelites follows the fall of the hammer - of real mirth, and of a very
different kind from affected make-believe sniggering and the buyer sheepishly
pays his money, and the transaction is a caution to all other strangers in the
room. So the game is kept alive through the disposal of the hundred and forty
lots that comprise Widow Tatters' household goods, and the entire proceeds
realize a sum that, instead of sixty pounds, leaves her exactly eleven pounds
fifteen "to open a little school or something" for the support of
herself and her five orphans.
After the sale comes the "knock out." The parlour
of the nearest public-house serves them as a meeting-place, and there they
congregate. They are all dealers, but there is sure to be one richer and in a
more extensive way of business than the rest amongst them. He takes the
chair, with the cata-[-157-]logue of the sale and a
pile of gold and silver money before him.
"The first lot, gentlemen," says he, " is the
drawing-room suite, knocked down at seven pounds. I shall stand nine for
it." "It's worth ten!" remarks one of the company. "Will you
give ten, Barny?" inquires the chairman. " No, I don't
want the lot." "Will anybody give more than nine pounds?" Nobody
will, and the chairman hands his eight brother conspirators each five shillings,
and the lot becomes his.
So with the goose-feather bed - (there is no talk now about
shuttlecocks or insinuations as to fever, the reader may depend) - and the
carpets and the splendid mahogany tables, &c., poor Tatters took such pride
in; and more or less the fatter from their picking of the bones of his widow and
little ones, the vultures disperse.