At a Sale of High-Class Sculpture

SCENE -- _An upper floor in a City Warehouse; a low whitewashed room, dimly lighted by dusty windows and two gas-burners in wire cages. Around the walls are ranged several statues of meek aspect, securely confined in barred wooden cases, like a sort of marble menagerie. In the centre, a labyrinthine grove of pedestals, surmounted by busts, groups, and statuettes by modern Italian masters. About these pedestals a small crowd -- consisting of Elderly Merchants on the look out for a "neat thing in statuary" for the conservatory at Croydon or Muswell Hill, Young City Men who have dropped in after lunch, Disinterested Dealers, Upholsterers' Buyers, Obliging Brokers, and Grubby and Mysterious men -- is cautiously circulating._

OBLIGING BROKER (_to_ AMIABLE SPECTATOR, _who has come in out of curiosity, and without the remotest intention of purchasing sculpture_). No Catlog, Sir? 'Ere, allow me to orfer you mine -- that's _my_ name in pencil on the top of it, Sir; and, if you _should_ 'appen to see any lot that takes your fancy, you jest ketch my eye. (_Reassuringly._) I sha'n't be fur off. Or look 'ere, gimme a nudge -- I shall know what it means.