"Mild or medium?" said Norman, beating a retreat into the shop to let the stranger enter and to look for the tobacco.
"Strong, of course," bellowed the old man. "Thank you."
"What a voice he has!" thought the grocer. The new customer sat down on a chair and threaded out the tobacco into an enormous briar, looking curiously about him. Suddenly he started.
"You don't mean to say that you keep Menodoron Mixture here!" said he. "I haven't been able to get any in this damned county at all."
He tapped the Navy Cut out of his pipe, swept it into his pouch, and seized hold of the Menodoron tin. As he did so his eye lit upon the Holbein. He gave a second start, more violent than the first, a quick, violent spasm of his entire body, which made his snowy beard flap like the handle of a water pump.
"Hullo! Where did you get that from?"
"Georg Gisze? He's a present from a friend of mine."
"And all those books and dictionaries, are they for sale? Have you a Grammar School in this notable town?"
"No, sir. I read them when business is slack."
"Then what are you doing here?" said the old man, earnestly. "I can see you are not a gentleman: you look too much like a god. Tell me, what are you doing, with a library like that, here in a grocer's shop, in this horrible little village?"