The Sale of Work took place during the September that followed the
winter of Larry's disaster, and it was indisputable that the Mangan
family contributed materially to its success. Mrs. Mangan was of a
class that is accustomed to get its money's worth, and was herself
known and respected as an able and inveterate haggler. Yet, at the
Mount Music Sale, she was content to hide her talent beneath
innumerable chair-backs and night-dress cases, purchased,
uncomplainingly, at the prices marked on them, and to permit the
contents of an apparently inexhaustible purse to flow in a golden
stream from stall to stall. Her family were no less in evidence, the
Big Doctor offering himself a cheerful victim on the shrine of
raffles, even attaching himself to Christian as a coadjutor in the
sale of tickets for the disposal of one of Rinka's latest progeny.
Mrs. Mangan's son and daughter, something subdued by unfamiliar
surroundings, were, on the disposal of the puppy-tickets, taken in
hand by their father, and were, with an eloquence that seemed meant
for a larger audience, made acquainted with the notable objects of the
house.

"If I could get hold of your mother, now," the Big Doctor would say,
"I'd like her to see this," or "Look at that picture, Tishy! That's a
lovely woman! The Major's grandmother, I believe. We'll ask Miss
Judith--'pon my honour, it might have been done of herself!"

Miss Judith, with a fruit and flower stall near the portrait in
question, coldly admitted the relationship, and ignored the question
of the likeness. Judith was of the age of intolerance; moreover, she
was at that moment in the act of selling a button-hole to Bill Kirby,
and the Doctor's enthusiasm was undesired.