CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
HOW I WAS KNOCKED DOWN BY AN AUCTIONEER, AND PICKED UP BY A COUNTRYMAN.
One day, about two years after my arrival at the pawnbroker's shop, an unusual circumstance happened to break the monotony of my unruffled existence.

This was nothing more nor less than a Clearance Sale.

I must tell you how it happened.
For a week, every night, I saw my master poring over a big account-book in his parlour, comparing the entries in it with those of his pawn- tickets, and marking off on one list what articles had been pawned and redeemed, and on another what had been pawned and still remained unredeemed.

So lengthy and complicated a process was this that it consumed the entire week.

The next week further indications of a coming change manifested themselves.