Indeed, it suggested an old-clothes shop in the Rue de Lappe in

process of selling off, so indescribable was the hotchpotch of

plates, gilt pasteboard cups, old red umbrellas, Italian jars,

clocks in all styles, platters and inkpots, firearms and squirts,

which lay chipped and broken and in unrecognizable heaps under a

layer of dust an inch deep. An unendurable odor of old iron, rags

and damp cardboard emanated from the various piles, where the debris

of forgotten dramas had been collecting for half a century.