He had done
some emphatic sputtering because he had neglected to take the one on
Thursday.
Shunning the newly discovered American club in Castle Avenue as if it
were a pest house, he lugubriously wandered the streets alone, painfully
conscious that the citizens, instead of staring at him with admiring
eyes, were taking but little notice of him. Tall young Americans were
quite common in Edelweiss in these days.
One dingy little shop in the square interested him. It was directly
opposite the Royal Cafe (with American bar attached), and the contents
of its grimy little windows presented a peculiarly fascinating interest
to him. Time and again, he crossed over from the Cafe garden to look
into these windows. They were packed with weapons and firearms of such
ancient design that he wondered what they could have been used for, even
in the Middle Ages. Once he ventured inside the little shop. Finding no
attendant, he put aside his suddenly formed impulse to purchase a mighty
broadsword. From somewhere in the rear of the building came the clanging
of steel hammers, the ringing of highly tempered metals; but, although
he pounded vigorously with his cane, no one came forth to attend him.
On several occasions he had seen a grim, sharp-featured old man in the
doorway of the shop, but it was not until after he had missed the
Thursday train that he made up his mind to accost him and to have the
broadsword at any price.
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