Of course I had tried to sell him; but that was a stretch of simplicity which met with little sympathy.

The auctioneer stormed up and down the streets on him for four days, dispersing the populace, interrupting business, and destroying children, and never got a bid--at least never any but the eighteen-dollar one he hired a notoriously substanceless bummer to make.
The people only smiled pleasantly, and restrained their desire to buy, if they had any.

Then the auctioneer brought in his bill, and I withdrew the horse from the market.

We tried to trade him off at private vendue next, offering him at a sacrifice for second-hand tombstones, old iron, temperance tracts--any kind of property.

But holders were stiff, and we retired from the market again.