After that he turned his attention to the water buckets, the cowls, and washtubs.  Lars Gunnarson seemed somewhat less reluctant when it came to disposing of the older ones, which he sold without indulging in overmuch sighing; but the newer lots he did not want to offer at all.  “They are far too good to give away,” he remarked to the owner.  “They’ve been used so little that you could easily sell them for new at the fair.”

The auction hunters had no notion as to why they kept shouting more and more eagerly.  Lars Gunnarson showed much distress for every fresh bid; it could never have been to please him they were bidding.  Somehow they had come to regard the things he offered as of real worth.  It suddenly occurred to them that one thing or another was needed at home and here were veritable bargains, which they were not buying now just for the fun of it, as had been the case when Joens of Kisterud did the auctioning.

After this master stroke Lars Gunnarson was in great demand at all auctions.  There was never any merriment at the sales after he had begun to wield the hammer; but he had the faculty of making folks long to get possession of a lot of old junk and inducing a couple of bigwigs to bid against each other on things they had no earthly use for, simply to show that money was no object to them.  And he managed to dispose of everything at all auctions at which he served.

Once only did it seem to go badly for Lars, and that was at Sven Oesterby’s, at Bergvik.  There was a fine big house, with all its furnishings up for sale.  Many people had assembled, and though late in the autumn the weather was so mild that the auction could be held out of doors; yet the sales were almost negligible.  Lars could not make the people take any interest in the wares, or get them to bid.  It looked as though it would go no better for him than it had gone for Joens of Kisterud the day Lars had to take up the hammer to help him out.

Lars Gunnarson, however, had no desire to turn his work over to another.  He tried instead to find out what it was that seemed to be distracting the attention of the people and keeping them from making purchases.  Nor was he long getting at the cause of it.

Lars had mounted a table, that every one might see what he had to offer, and from this point of vantage he soon discovered that the newly created emperor, who lived in the little but close to Falla and had been a day labourer all his life, moved about in the crowd.  Lars saw him bowing and smiling to right and left, and letting people examine his stars and his stick, and, at every turn, he had a long line of youngsters at his heels.  Nor were older folks above bandying words with him.  No wonder the auction went badly, with a grand monarch like him there to draw every one’s attention to himself!

At first Lars went right on with his auctioneering, but he kept an eye on Jan of Ruffluck until the later had made his way to the front.  There was no fear of Johannes of Portugallia remaining in the background!  He shook hands with everybody and spoke a few pleasant words to each and all, at the same time pushing ahead until he had reached the very centre of the ring.