Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 224, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1915 — HAD TO ADMIT “DRAWBACKS” [ARTICLE]

HAD TO ADMIT “DRAWBACKS”

Doubtful, However, if Auctioneer’s "Candor" Interfered With the Sale of the Estate. A certain London auctioneer, in addition to a fine personal appearance and splendid elocutionary talents. Is possessed of considerable culture and knowledge of human nature. At a book sale this gentleman would read with exquisite taßte passages from the books he was selling, with brief biographies and criticisms of their authors, reciting hexameters from Greek and Roman classics, and rendering passages from humorous writers with a tone and air so ludicrous as to set the room in a roar of laughter. Thus he often won higher prices for books than those got at the shops.

An amusing example of his cleverness in extolling an estate is the language with which he once closed a highly-colored description of the property he was selling. For a few moments he paused, and then said: .“And now, gentlemen, having given a truthful description of this magnificent estate, candor compels me to admit that It has two drawbacks —the Utter of the rose leaves and the noise of the nightingales.”