To my left was a long table covered with pots of the most beautiful flowers that I had ever seen; all of them orchids.
Along the wall and opposite were other tables closely packed with withered roots which I concluded were also those of orchids.

To my inexperienced eye the whole lot did not look worth five shillings, for they seemed to be dead.
At the head of the room stood the rostrum, where sat a gentleman with an extremely charming face.

He was engaged in selling by auction so rapidly that the clerk at his side must have had difficulty in keeping a record of the lots and their purchasers.

In front of him was a horseshoe table, round which sat buyers.

The end of this table was left unoccupied so that the porters might exhibit each lot before it was put up for sale.
Standing under the rostrum was yet another table, a small one, upon which were about twenty pots of flowers, even more wonderful than those on the large table.