Re: Best Wishes for a Merry Christmas!

[Thomas Field]

sixty, frail and bowed,
with a long, benevolent nose, and mild eyes distorted by thick spectacles.
His hair was almost white, but his eyebrows were bushy and still black. His
spectacles, his gentle, fussy movements, and the fact that he was wearing
an aged jacket of black velvet, gave him a vague air of intellectuality, as
though he had been some kind of literary man, or perhaps a musician. His
voice was soft, as though faded, and his accent less debased than that of
the majority of proles.
'I recognized you on the pavement,' he said immediately. 'You're the
gentleman that bought the young lady's keepsake album. That was a beautiful
bit of paper, that was. Cream-laid, it used to be called. There's been no
paper like that made for -- oh, I dare say fifty years.' He peered at
Winston over the top of his spectacles. 'Is there anything special I can do
for you? Or did you just want to look round?'
'I was passing,' said Winston vaguely. 'I just looked in. I don't want
anything in particular.'
'It's just as well,' said the other, 'because I don't suppose I could
have satisfied you.' He made an apologetic gesture with his softpalmed
hand. 'You see how it is; an empty shop, you might say. Between you and me,
the antique trade's just about finished. No demand any longer, and no stock
either. Furniture, china, glass it's all been broken up by degrees. And of
course the metal stuff's mostly been melted down. I haven't seen a brass
candlestick in years.'
The tiny interior of the shop was in fact uncomfortably full, but
there was almost nothing in it of the slightest value. The floorspace was
very restricted, because all round the walls were stacked innumerable dusty
picture-frames. In the window there were trays of nuts and bolts, worn-out
chisels, penknives with broken bla