"If they all yield up something they value, we can collect the goods in a mass and have a sale, and the proceeds of the sale can go to the Hutchings Testimonial."
The committee approved of this, excepting Thwaites, who thought nothing of it; but when asked to give his objections, he merely said:
Which we did do, and found that Thwaites was wonderfully right, and had looked on ahead much farther than us. The kids agreed willingly to subscribe in goods, and were only too delighted to do so; but when it came to the point, the goods of the kids proved utterly worthless in the open market. It was a revelation, in a sort of a way, to see the things the kids valued and honestly thought were worth money. In fact, Preston said it was pathetic, and Pegram said we had a good foundation for a rubbish heap, but nothing more. They brought string and screws and nails, also the glass marbles from a certain make of ginger-beer bottle, and knives fearfully out of order, and corkscrews, and padlocks without keys, and a few threadbare story books, and three copies of _Hymns Ancient and Modern_, and two old horseshoes, and catapults and bullets and shot and charms. They also brought three steel watch-chains and one leather one; and Percy Minimus offered a watch-chain made from his mother’s hair, so he said; but nobody bid for it, naturally, for who on earth wants a watch-chain made out of somebody else’s mother’s hair? There was also a bottle imp, fourteen indiarubber balls and seven golf balls--all worn out--two kids’ cricket bats unspliced, three pairs of tan gloves--new but small--and one pair of wool ones, eight neckties, not new, and a silk handkerchief, given to Tudor in case he had a cold in his head, but not required up till now, and therefore new. Among other items was half a packet of Sanatogen, also from Tudor, a box of chocolate cigarettes, several conjuring tricks, mostly out of order, and three guinea-pigs alive. Of other live things were included a white rat, with pink eyes and a hairless, pinkish tail, and a dormouse, which Mathers said was hibernating, though Mitchell thought was dead. It proved alive, on applying warmth, and fetched fivepence. Lastly, there was a chrysalis, into which a remarkable caterpillar, found by Hastings on the twenty-first of last September, had turned; and as nobody knew the species of moth to be presently produced by it, Hastings thought it worth money, and put a reserve of two-pence on it. But the chrysalis was long overdue, and so it did not reach the reserve; and so Hastings, who was still hopeful, bought it back for that sum. As a matter of fact, it never turned into anything, and was found to be quite hollow when examined.