34 A happy discovery

Antique shops exert a peculiar fascination on a great many people.

The more expensive kind of antique shop where rare objects are beautifully displayed in glass cases to keep them free from dust is usually a forbidding place.

But no one has to muster up courage to enter a less pretentious antique shop.

There is always hope that in its labyrinth of musty, dark, disordered rooms a real rarity will be found amongst the piles of assorted junk that litter the floors.

No one discovers a rarity by chance.

A truly dedicated bargain hunter must have patience, and above all, the ability to recognize the worth of something when he sees it.