However, the broker gave her a very different solution; he said, "The trade always run up a lady or a gentleman.

Let me bid for you; they won't run me up; they know better." Rosa did not reply, but looked at Mrs.Cole.
"Yes, dear," said that lady; "you had much better let him bid for you." "Very well," said Rosa; "you can bid for this chest of drawers--lot 25." When lot 25 came on, the broker bid in the silliest possible way, if his object had been to get a bargain.

He began to bid early and ostentatiously; the article was protected by somebody or other there present, who now of course saw his way clear; he ran it up audaciously, and it was purchased for Rosa at about the price it could have been bought for at a shop.
The next thing she wanted was a set of oak chairs.
They went up to twenty-eight pounds; then she said, "I shall give no more, sir." "Better not lose them," said the agent; "they are a great bargain;" and bid another pound for her on his own responsibility.
They were still run up, and Rosa peremptorily refused to give any more.
She lost them, accordingly, by good luck.

Her faithful broker looked blank; so did the proprietor.
But, as the sale proceeded, she being young, the competition, though most of it sham, being artful and exciting, and the traitor she employed constantly puffing every article, she was drawn in to wishing for things, and bidding by her feelings.
Then her traitor played a game that has been played a hundred times, and the perpetrators never once lynched, as they ought to be, on the spot.
He signalled a confederate with a hooked nose; the Jew rascal bid against the Christian scoundrel, and so they ran up the more enticing things to twice their value under the hammer.
Rosa got flushed, and her eye gleamed like a gambler's, and she bought away like wildfire.

In which sport she caught sight of an old gentleman, with little black eyes that kept twinkling at her.
She complained of these eyes to Mrs.Cole.