He gave Meschini the only chair, and
seated himself upon a three-legged stool.
It was a dismal scene. The shop was like many of its kind in the
poorer quarters of old Rome There was room for the counter and for
three people to stand before it when the door was shut. The floor
was covered with a broken pavement of dingy bricks. As the two men
began to play a fine, drizzling rain wet the silent street
outside, and the bricks within at once exhibited an unctuous
moisture. The sky had become cloudy after the fine morning, and
there was little light in the shop. Three of the walls were hidden
by cases with glass doors, containing an assortment of majolica
jars which would delight a modern amateur, but which looked dingy
and mean in the poor shop. Here and there, between them, stood
bottles large and small, some broken and dusty, others filled with
liquids and bearing paper labels, brown with age, the ink
inscriptions fading into the dirty surface that surrounded them.
The only things in the place which looked tolerably clean were the
little brass scales and the white marble tablet for compounding
solid medicines.
The two men looked as though they belonged to the little room.
Meschini's yellow complexion was as much in keeping with the
surroundings as the chemist's gray, colourless face.
Pages:
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618