The assistant displayed a gong with a beater that Dickens had used to gather his family together at Gadshill.
As a battle ensued up to thirty guineas, Osgood's neighbor behind him whispered squeakily, “He was always fond of gongs.” Osgood, not certain how to respond, smiled politely. “Oh, yes,” the squeaky man continued insistently, a handkerchief pressed to his right cheek, responding to an objection Osgood had not made. “Don't you remember the weak-eyed young man and the gong at Dr. Blimber's in Dombey and Son?”
By this point, Grunwald had secured a pair of watercolors depicting Little Nell's house and grave from The Old Curiosity Shop. As the actor stood to go, he stopped at Osgood's row. He was followed step for step by the same young woman who was fixing his cravat at the Surrey.
“There you are, Osgood, sitting with your hands in your pockets,” he said, shaking out his black mane. “Did you see what happened?”
“Yes, congratulations on your purchase, Mr. Grunwald.”
“Not a purchase. A victory. I knocked these down from the hands of those mischievous dealers through fortitude and decisiveness. I did not depict Hamlet at the Princess without learning something of courage. People have misunderstood Hamlet for centuries, you know-it is not he who is indecisive; he has perfectly fine resolve: it is the critics that cannot make up its mind about him! Good afternoon, Mr. Osgood.”
Before leaving the room, Grunwald passed a look over the entire auction house as though he had outsmarted not just a few dealers but every person there.
At last:
“Lot seventy-nine, a tazza, pink, with ormolu foot, formerly upon Gadshill's drawing room mantel.”
Osgood entered the fray, crossing over the actual value of three pounds and elevating each dealer and admirer's number until reaching seven pounds fifteen. That price won the day.
He received his ticket from the clerk, who wrote down the sale price. The publisher proceeded down the aisle into the next room where, in return for his payment, he was handed the pretty glass bowl pulled from a box of other household items. Returning to his seat, Osgood found the sale at its highest pitch of excitement yet.
Grip! Grip! Grip! was called out from all sides. Front and center was a glass case holding a stuffed raven called Grip that had been Dickens's favorite pet and the prototype for a talkative bird of the same name in his novel Barnaby Rudge. The cacophony of spirited voices quoted their favorite Grip sayings from that novel. The bidding was ferocious, and the hammer did not fall before 120 pounds were pledged.
A wild round of applause followed, and “Name!” was called out for as a way of honoring the purchaser. “Mr. George Nottage, of Cheap-side!” the man complied heartily.
“What's the matter?” Osgood asked his confidant when the audience began to moan and hiss.
“Nottage,” his neighbor replied, “he's the owner of the Stereoscopic Company. Why, he'll simply use the bird to make stereoscopic photographs to sell for profit!”
Osgood realized what an oddity it was: at an auction house, a crowd of moralists who in the name of Charles Dickens sneered at profit. After a few more sets of lots, they had finally come to the next item circled in his catalog: the plaster statue of a Turk seated smoking opium. The grotesque he had seen in the Swiss chalet at Gadshill by Dickens's writing desk that could hold clues they'd be able to use. But the auctioneer skipped to the subsequent items. As Woods described them, Osgood stood up and raised his hand.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Woods, but I believe you have forgotten lot eighty-five. The Turk-”
“Lot eighty-six…”
“But, respectfully, sir,” Osgood continued, “eighty-five is supposed…”
Osgood's sweaty neighbor was pulling at his sleeve, his squeaky voice more high-pitched than ever. “If you don't be quiet…”
Down smashed the hammer. “Eighty-six!” Woods pronounced with divine authority, as though the number eighty-five had been generally eliminated from genteel arithmetic. “Night and Morning, a pair of reliefs after Thorwaldsen in gilt frames!”
Osgood sat back down defeated. The gatherers had begun to mutter inquisitively about the skipped lot but were soon placated by watching an entertaining squabble between two dealers over the framed reliefs. Osgood regretfully prepared to leave with the tazza in hand.
There was a stocky man with hands deep in his pockets inching his way through the mob of people. He was looking down at his feet, but at intervals, Osgood noticed, he would look directly at the publisher. It must have been Osgood's imagination, fueled by his displeasure at the auctioneer's omission. But then Osgood turned to look over his other shoulder. The exit was blocked by a larger, scowling man with a face like a whetstone, gazing right at Osgood. He began to move closer.
For a few more seconds, Osgood kept dismissing the idea that these two men were as threatening as they appeared. Telling himself to be rational, he decided to perform a test. As he rose to his feet slowly, they both paused, looked at each other, then resumed their paths toward him more aggressively, like two ends of a vise. The stocky onlooker was no longer hiding his gaze. Meanwhile, Osgood was penned in everywhere else by the immense population of Dickensites packed in the room.
Then a hand was on Osgood's shoulder.
“Beg pardon,” Osgood said in firm protest. “Is there something wrong, sir?”
“We'd like to take you upstairs,” the stocky man replied.
“Who are you?” asked Osgood. “I insist on knowing what you gentlemen want before I go with you.”
Giving no reply, the man pulled Osgood up by the arm and began to drag him toward the exit behind the auctioneer.
Osgood threw his hand up.
“Do you bid, sir?” Woods asked Osgood, clearing his throat nervously.
The auctioneer's assistant was holding up a sad little salt cellar that had thus far attracted little notice. “Ten shillings value, sir,” Woods said.
“What bid are we at?” Osgood asked loudly.
“Nine shillings, sir.”
“Ten guineas,” Osgood said, then raised his own bid: “Ten and a half!”
The crowd gasped at the remarkable amount for the salt dish. This suggested that the rest of the crowd had overlooked its worth, and other bids bounced around the auction hall until Osgood finished at eighteen and a half guineas. The spectators exploded into cheers to commemorate the extravagant purchase. Osgood threw his hat into the air. This sent the audience into paroxysms of excitement and everyone around the room stood and applauded. In the meantime, he used the attention and the confusion to slide from the man's grasp.
But the man was behind him in a flash and the crowd was still too thick to get around.
In a remarkable deliverance, before he knew what had happened, Osgood was hoisted on two men's shoulders. Wriggling off of them, he nearly tumbled right over the head of the other pursuer while desperately clutching his newly purchased glass tazza. Osgood balanced the tazza safely under his arm and ran, escaping the crowd only to lose his balance, tripping as he crossed over the threshold into the anteroom. The tazza went flying.
“No!” Osgood cried, caught in the helpless moment of waiting for it to shatter.
A man stepped out of the shadows and caught the tazza before it could hit the floor.
Osgood exhaled in relief. The tazza had survived. The man who looked up from underneath his wide-brimmed hat had intelligent, dashing eyes. A floppy purple flower leaned out from his buttonhole.
“They're still behind you!” he said. “Follow me.”
Chapter 19
HIS RESCUER LED OSGOOD THROUGH A BACK CORRIDOR OF Christie's into a basement and out the street door. The two men came out into a small lane that led them into the cover of the boisterous London crowds.