In the open doorways and under the gallery stood groups of men whose faces and hands were raddled and creased by the sun and whose clothes were those of the countryman in town. They were the wool growers, the run holders, the sheep cockies, the back-countrymen. Upon the behaviour of the buyers their manner of living for the next twelve months would depend. The wool sale was what it all amounted to: long musters over high-country; nights spent by shepherds in tin huts on mountain-sides; late snows that came down into lambing paddocks; noisy rituals of dipping, crutching, shearing; the final down-country journey of the wool bales— this was the brief and final comment on the sheepman’s working year.

Flossie saw her husband, Arthur Rubrick, standing in a doorway. She waved vigorously. The men who were with Arthur pointed her out. He gave her a dubious nod and began to make his way along a side aisle towards her. As soon as he reached the steps that led from the auditorium up to her doorway she called out in a sprightly manner. “Look where I’ve got to! Come up and join me!” He did so but without enthusiasm.

“What are you doing up here, Floss?” he said. “You ought to have gone down below.”

“Down below wouldn’t suit me at all.”

“Everyone’s looking at you.”

“That doesn’t embarrass me,” she said loudly. “When will he get to us, darling? Show me.”

“Ssh!” said her husband unhappily and handed her his catalogue.

Flossie made play with her lorgnette. She flicked it open modishly with a white-gloved hand and looked through it at the lists. There was a simultaneous flutter of white paper throughout the hall. “Over we go, I see,” said Flossie and turned a page. “Now, where are we?”

Her husband grunted urgently and jerked up his head.

“Lot One-eighty,” gabbled the auctioneer.

“Thirteen.”

“Half!” yelled old Ormerod.

“Three!”

“Fourteen!”