of which pre-dated 1700, he saw one of those big Belgian navy pistols,
_circa_ 1800, of the sort once advertised far and wide by a certain
old-army-goods dealer for $6.95. This was a particularly repulsive
specimen of its breed; grimy with hardened dust and gummed oil, maculated
with yellow-surface-rust, the brasswork green with corrosion. It was
impossible to shrug off a thing like that. From then on, Rand kept his
eyes open for similar incongruities.

They weren't hard to find. There was a big army pistol, of Central
European origin and in abominable condition, among a row of fine
multi-shot flintlocks. Multi-shot ... Stephen Gresham had mentioned an
Elisha Collier flintlock revolver. It wasn't there. It should be hanging
about where this post-Napoleonic German thing was.

There was no Hall breech-loader, either, but there was a dilapidated old
Ketland. There were many such interlopers among the U.S. Martials: an
English ounce-ball cavalry pistol, a French 1777 and a French 1773, a
couple more $6.95 bargain-counter specials, a miserable altered S. North
1816. Among the Colts, there was some awful junk, including a big Spanish
hinge-frame .44 and a Belgian imitation of a Webley R.I.C. Model. There
weren't as many Paterson Colts as Gresham had spoken of, and the
Whitneyville Walker was absent. It went on like that; about a dozen of
the best pistols which Rand remembered having seen from two years ago
were gone, and he spotted at least twenty items which the late Lane
Fleming wouldn't have hung in his backyard privy, if he'd had one.

Well, that was to be expected. The way these pistols were arranged, the
absence of one from its hooks would have been instantly obvious. So, as
the good stuff had moved out, these disreputable changelings had moved
in.