away that Peter remembered that he wanted to ask some questions, and then
Stephen interrupted him with:

"Like to go to Zachary Tan's with me this afternoon, boy? I've got to be
lookin' in."

Peter jumped to his feet with excitement.

"Oh! Steve! This afternoon--this _very_ afternoon?"

It was the most exciting thing possible. Zachary Tan's was the curiosity
shop of Treliss and famous even twenty years ago throughout the south
country. It is still there, I believe, although Zachary himself is dead and
with him has departed most of the atmosphere of the place, and it is now
smart and prosperous, although in those days it was dark and dingy enough.
No one knew whence Zachary had come, and he was one of the mysteries of a
place that deals, even now, in mysteries. He had arrived as a young man
with a basket over his back thirty years before Peter saw the light, when
Treliss was a little fishing village and Mr. Bannister, Junior, had not
cast his enterprising eye over The Man at Arms. Zachary had beads and
silks, and little silver images in his basket, and he had stayed there
in a little room over the shop, and things had prospered with him. The
inhabitants of the place had never trusted him, but they were always
interested. "Thiccy Zachary be a poor trade," they had said at first, "poor
trade" signifying anything or anybody not entirely approved of--but they
had hung about his shop, had bought his silks and little ornaments, and had
talked to him sometimes with eyes open and mouth agape at the things that
he could tell them. And then people had come from Truro and Pendragon and
even Bodmin and, finally, Exeter, because they had heard of the things
that he had for sale. No one knew where he found his treasures, for he was