The ten-spot of hearts seemed to have startled her for some reason. I
wondered why.
The snow blew about me, whirled, and swirled, and stung. Oddly enough
I recalled the paragraph relative to Mrs. Hyphen-Bonds. By this time
she was being very well tossed about in mid-ocean. As the old order of
yarn-spinners used to say, little did I dream what was in store for me,
or the influence the magic name of Hyphen-Bonds was to have upon my
destiny.
Bismillah! (Whatever that means!)
II
After half an hour's wandering about I stumbled across a curio-shop, a
weird, dim and dusty, musty old curio-shop, with stuffed peacocks
hanging from the ceiling, and skulls, and bronzes and marbles,
paintings, tarnished jewelry and ancient armor, rare books in vellum,
small arms, tapestry, pastimes, plaster masks, and musical instruments.
I recalled to mind the shop of the dealer in antiquities in Balzac's
_La Peau de Chagrin_, and glanced about (not without a shiver) for the
fatal ass's skin. (I forgot that I was wearing it myself that night!)
I was something of a collector of antiquities, of the inanimate kind,
and for a time I became lost in speculation,--speculation rather
agreeable of its kind, I liked to conjure up in fancy the various
scenes through which these curiosities had drifted in their descent to
this demi-pawnshop; the brave men and beautiful women, the clangor of
tocsins, the haze of battles, the glitter of ball-rooms, epochs and
ages.
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