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bought--you know the place: meat, grocery, linen, furniture,
clothing, oil paintings even--a huge meandering collection of shops
rather than a shop. I had thought I should find the doors open, but
they were closed, and as I stood in the wide entrance a carriage
stopped outside, and a man in uniform--you know the kind of
personage with 'Omnium' on his cap--flung open the door. I contrived
to enter, and walking down the shop--it was a department where they
were selling ribbons and gloves and stockings and that kind of
thing--came to a more spacious region devoted to picnic baskets and
wicker furniture.
"I did not feel safe there, however; people were going to and fro,
and I prowled restlessly about until I came upon a huge section in
an upper floor containing multitudes of bedsteads, and over these I
clambered, and found a resting-place at last among a huge pile of
folded flock mattresses. The place was already lit up and agreeably
warm, and I decided to remain where I was, keeping a cautious
eye on the two or three sets of shopmen and customers who were
meandering through the place, until closing time came. Then I
should be able, I thought, to rob the place for food and clothing,
and disguised, prowl through it and examine its resources, perhaps
sleep on some of the bedding. That seemed an acceptable plan.
My idea was to procure clothing to make myself a muffled but
acceptable figure, to get money, and then to recover my books
and parcels where they awaited me, take a lodging somewhere and
elaborate plans for the complete realisation of the advantages my
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