Stephen was very silent going across the Common and down the high road
into the town, but Peter knew him too well by this time to interrupt his
thoughts. He was thinking perhaps about his accounts that would not come
right or about the fight and Burstead his enemy.

Everybody had their troubles that they thought about and every one had
their secrets, the things that they kept to themselves--even Aunt Jessie
and old Curtis the gardener--one must either be as clever as Zachary Tan
or as foolish as Dicky the Idiot to know very much about people. Zachary,
Peter had noticed, was one of the persons who always listened to everything
that Dicky had to say, and treated him with the greatest seriousness, even
when he seemed to be talking about the wildest things--and it was a great
many years after this that Peter discovered that it was only the wisest
people who knew how very important fools were. Zachary's shop was at the
very bottom of Poppero Street, the steep and cobbled street that goes
straight down to the little wooden jetty where the fishing boats lie, and
you could see the sea like a square handkerchief between the houses on
either side. Many of the houses in Poppero Street are built a little below
the level of the pathway, and you must go down steps to reach the door.
Zachary's shop was like this, and it had a green door with a bright
brass knocker. There were always many things jumbled together in the
window--candlesticks, china shepherds and shepherdesses, rings and
necklaces, cups and saucers, little brass figures, coins, snuff-boxes,
match-boxes, charms, and old blue china plates, and at the back a complete
suit of armour that had been there ever since Zachary had first opened his
shop.

Of course, inside there were a thousand and one things of the most exciting
kind, but Stephen, an enormous figure in the low-roofed shop, brushed past
the pale-faced youth whom Zachary now hired to assist with the customers