Ellen would not let him buy anything on the occasion of this
sale; she said he had better see one sale first and watch how prices
actually went. So at twelve o'clock when the sale began, he saw the
lots sold which he and Ellen had marked, and by the time the sale
was over he knew enough to be able to bid with safety whenever he
should actually want to buy. Knowledge of this sort is very easily
acquired by anyone who is in bona fide want of it.
But Ellen did not want him to buy at auctions- not much at least
at present. Private dealing, she said, was best. If I, for example,
had any cast-off clothes, he was to buy them from my laundress, and
get a connection with other laundresses to whom he might give a trifle
more than they got at present for whatever clothes their masters might
give them, and yet make a good profit. If gentlemen sold their things,
he was to try and get them to sell to him. He flinched at nothing;
perhaps he would have flinched if he had had any idea how outre his
proceedings were, but the very ignorance of the world which had ruined
him up till now, by a happy irony began to work its own cure. If
some malignant fairy had meant to curse him in this respect, she had
overdone her malice.
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