oil, two hundred chests of rhubarb, and three
hundred and fifty "serons" of yellow bark.
The rising broker stormed and raved, as bid
followed bid, piercing the murmuring din
with sharp expletives. One, two, three, four
—the nine hundred cases were disposed of in
no time by some miraculous process of
shorthand-auctioneering known only at
Garraway's. I thought the broker would have
gone absolutely mad, as the bids went rapidly
on: some slow man of inferior intellect would
have given the buyers time to overbid each
other: he seemed to take delight in
perplexing the whole room, and as quickly as a
voice cried out "Hep!" (the bidding
interjection of Garraway's) so instantaneously fell
the everlasting little hammer; and as surely
did the seller scowl harder than ever, as much
as to say, "I should just like to catch anybody
else in time for that lot." In this fashion
above three hundred lots were sold in less
time than many people in the last century
would have taken to count them up.

The "rising" broker was followed by one
of the old school, a pleasant-looking, easy-
going man, the very reverse of his predecessor.
He consumed as much time in wiping
and adjusting his spectacles, as had sufficed
just before to knock down a score of lots.
He couldn't find a pen that didn't splutter,
and he couldn't make his catalogue lie flat on
the desk; and at last the impatience of the
"rising" men, and the Lane lads—Young
Mincing Lane—was manifested by a sharp
rapping of boot-heels on the floor, which soon
swelled to a storm. The quiet broker was
not to be hurried; he looked mildly around
over his glasses, and rebuked rebellion with
"Boys, boys! no nonsense." The bids went
smoothly along; potent drugs, rich dyes, and
costly spices fell before the calculating
hammer; but, each time, ere it descended, the
bland seller gazed inquiringly, and I almost
fancied imploringly, at the bidder, lest he
had made a mistake, and might wish to
retract his rash "Hep!"

The broker who followed, dealt largely in
flowing language, as well as drugs and dyes.
He assured the company present—and looked
very hard at me, as though I was perfectly
aware of the fact, and was ready to back
him—that he intended to give all his lots
away; he was determined to get rid of them,
and he really would not allow his friends to
leave the room without distributing his goods
among them. Considering his liberal spirit,
I thought his friends evinced very little
thankfulness; for the lots moved as slowly as presents
could be supposed to do. There was one
nice little parcel—about twenty cases of
aloes—that he was determined on giving
away to a very musty old dealer, who,
however, shook his ancient head, and declined the
bitter bargain.

There were a few score tons of some
mysterious article, with an unintelligible
name, that hung somewhat heavily at
twopence three farthings per pound. It was
amusing to see how politely anxious the
broker was to work the figure up to
threepence; not that he wanted the extra
farthing; he'd rather have flung it all into
the sea than have felt such a paltry desire;
but he just wanted to see the thing go
at even money; it would look so much
better in the Price Current, and would
make the total so much more easy to cast in
the account sales. His winning eloquence
was fruitless; the unpronounceable drug was
knocked down at twopence three farthings.
When I expressed my astonishment that men
of such undoubted substance as I saw there,
should condescend to haggle, like any
hucksters, at an odd farthing, I was told that
trifling as the difference appeared by the
single pound weight, the aggregate of the extra
farthing upon the quantity offered for sale
that day, would amount to some thousands of
pounds sterling; and that, at certain seasons,
some paltry odd farthing had realised or lost
fortunes. There were a few more unintelligible
things—Mincing Lane jargon—that required
interpretation. What "overtakers" could
mean, I was at a loss to know; but I learnt
that they were certain extra packages
required to re-pack goods, after they had been
opened out in the dock warehouses. One
smart-looking seller astonished me by putting
up what he termed a lot of "good handy
sweeps!"—not climbing-boys, but the sweepings
of the warehouses.

When the day's work was over; when the
last lot of "sweeps" was disposed of, and
buyers and sellers, Lane men and Lane lads,
once more mingled in Babel discord; the
dense green fog in the narrow alley peeped in
at the sooty windows; the hazy gas-light over
the pulpit, winked at the murky fog through
the glass, flickered, struggled, waned, and
went out; we turned towards the old staircase,
slowly merging into the general crowd,
and I again heard the names of strange
chemicals, and gums, and substances, spoken of
in kindly sympathising brotherhood. Cream
of tartar had, no doubt, felt rather poorly a
short time since, for it was said to be
"decidedly improving." Opium must have been in
an undecided and vacillating mood during a
long period, as I heard it reported to be
"showing a little firmness at last." Scammony
was said to be "drooping";  and as for
castor-oil, there was not the slightest hope of
its "recovering." It was curious to hear those
articles destined for the cure of human
maladies, or ease of human sufferings, thus
intimately linked in their own capacities with
worldly ailings and earthly infirmities. I
almost expected to hear that some of the
dyes had got the measles, or that hooping-
cough had made its appearance in the younger
branches of the drug family.

A better estimate of the actual amount of
potent medicine which the human family,
somehow or other, contrives to imbibe, can