Shock and I set to work helping to unfasten the ropes, which were laced
in and out of the basket-handles, and through the iron stays, and
beneath the hooks placed on purpose about the cart, after which the
ropes were made into neat bunches by Ike, who passed them from hand to
elbow over and over and tied them in the middle, and then in a row to
the ladder of the cart.
The baskets were just set free when the busy-looking man came back along
with a tall red-nosed fellow. I noticed his red nose because it was the
same colour as a book he held, whose leather cover was like a bad
strawberry. He had a little ink-bottle hanging at his buttonhole and a
pen in his mouth, and was followed by quite a crowd of keen-looking men.
"Now, Jacob," said the little man, and clapping his hand upon the thin
man's shoulder he stepped up on to the top of a pile of barge-baskets,
whose lids were tied down with tarred string over the cauliflowers with
which they were gorged.
Then, as I stared at him, he put his hands on either side of his mouth
and seemed to go mad with satisfaction, dancing his body up and down and
slowly turning round as he yelled out: "Strawby's! strawby's! strawby's!" over and over again.
I looked up at Ike, whose face was as if cut out of mahogany, it was so
solid; then I looked round at the people, but there wasn't a smile.
Nobody laughed but Shock, who grinned silently till he saw me watching
him, and then he looked sulky and turned his back.
Just then Ike, who seemed as solemn as a judge, climbed up the wheel and
on to the cart with another man following him; and as the crowd
increased about our cart I realised that everything was being sold by
auction, for the busy man kept shouting prices quickly higher and
higher, and then giving a tap with a pencil on a basket, entering
something in a memorandum-book, while his red-nosed clerk did the same.
I stared to see how quickly it was all done, Ike and the strange man
handing down the baskets, which were seized and carried away by porters
to carts standing at a distance; and I wondered how they would ever find
out afterwards who had taken them, and get the money paid.
But Ike seemed to be quite satisfied as he trampled about over the
baskets, which were handed rapidly down till from being high up he was
getting low down, before the busy-looking man began to shout what
sounded to me like, "Flow--wow--wow--wow!" as if he were trying to
imitate barking like a dog.
Half the crowd went away now, but a fresh lot of men came up, and first
of all baskets full of flowers were sold, then half-baskets, then so
many bunches, as fast as could be.