A day is more obviously wasted if one goes home with nothing to show than if one brings a table or a bedstead purchased at twice its proper value.

Thus the bidding at Hyacinth's auction was brisk, and the prices such as gave sincere satisfaction to the auctioneer.

Everything was sold except 'the valuable library.' It was in vain that the auctioneer made personal appeals to Father Moran and the Rector of Clifden, as presumably the two most learned gentlemen present.

Neither of them wanted the venerable classics.

In fact, neither of them could have read a line of the crooked Greek type or construed a page of the Latin authors.