Another in our occasional series of highlights from our local auction-room catalogues.  [My comments in italic.]

A portrait of two young children, one wearing a plumed hat, with a cat, English School, probably 19th century …
I think we should be told why the cat is sitting on the hat and not the child’s lap.  Or is it dead and just being used instead of a feather in the child’s hat?

A Victorian Sri Lankan colonial overmantel mirror in rare zebra wood, the shield-shaped central plate beneath a fruit carved cornice, flanked by turned columns and leaf shaped mirrors above small display shelves.
It sounds a complete dog’s breakfast; I just can’t picture it.

An antique style silver collar.
That’s all!  A collar for what?  A coat?  A dog?  A vicar?  Mme Whiplash? – oh, sorry, no, she’s the vicar.

A varied interesting lot containing military buttons, badges and dog tags, and a soldier’s service and pay book (1943), autograph book, the works of William Shakespeare, a pair of wooden barleytwist candlesticks, a bejewelled trinket box in the form of a tortoise, picture frames, mixed coinage, brassware, etc.
You just know as soon as you see “a varied interesting lot” it is going to be a collection of toot, but this one was especially, and probably literally, priceless.

A large plated ‘well and tree’ meat dish, two waiters and a syphon stand.
Are the waiters holding up the syphon stand or vice versa?  Are we sure it’s a syphon stand and not a village pump for extracting the meat juices from the well?

A stuffed kingfisher mounted in a circular frame with domed glass.
Why?

2 crocodile skins, 65 ins and 36 ins long.
Start a new fashion: crocodile skin bedroom rugs.

A 19th century Arab Nimcha sword, the multi-fullered straight blade with steel hilt and angular knuckle guard with tracers of damascening, the grip of rhinoceros horn, 38 ins, remains of scabbard.
It was the “remains of scabbard” that finished me; as if this pile of dust makes everything kosher.

An interesting collection of Carlton Ware comprising a farmyard condiment set of farmhouse mustard with cover, barn pepperette and hayrick salt shaker, on circular stand …
This is the piece de resistance!  I almost went to the sale just to look at this hideous sounding cruet.