After we had passed some way down Ratcliffe Highway, D'Arcy said, 'Here we are then,' and pointed to a shop, or rather two shops, on the opposite side of the street. One window was filled with caged birds; the other with specimens of beautiful Oriental pottery and grotesque curiosities in the shape of Chinese and Japanese statues and carvings. My brain still rang with the air I had heard the river-boy whistling, but I felt that I must talk about something. 'It is here that you buy your wonderful curiosities and porcelain!' I said. 'Partly; but there is not a curiosity shop in London that I have not ransacked in my time.' The shop we now entered reminded me of that Raxton Fair which was so much associated with Winnie. Its chief attraction was the advent of Wombwell's menagerie. From the first moment that the couriers of that august establishment came to paste their enormous placards on the walls, down to the sad morning when the caravans left the market-place, Winnie and I and Rhona Boswell had talked 'Wombwell.' It was not merely that the large pictures of the wild animals in action, the more than brassy sound of the cracked brass band, delighted our eyes and ears. Our olfactories also were charmed. The mousy scent of the animals mixed with the scent of sawdust, which to adults was so objectionable, was characterised by us as delicious. All these Wombwell delights came back to me as we entered Jamrach's, and for a time the picture of Winifred prevented my seeing the famous shop. When this passed I saw that the walls of the large room were covered from top to bottom with cages, some of them full of wonderful or beautiful birds, and others full of evil-faced, screeching monkeys. While D'Arcy was amusing himself with a blue-faced rib-nosed baboon, I asked Mr. Jamrach, an extremely intelligent man, about the singing girl and the Welsh air. But he could tell me nothing, and evidently thought I had been hoaxed. In a small case by itself was a beautiful jewelled cross, which attracted D'Arcy's attention very much. 'This is not much in your line,' he said to Jamrach.'This is European.' 'It came to me from Morocco,' said Jamrach, 'and it was no doubt taken by a Morocco pirate from some Venetian captive.' 'It is a diamond and ruby cross,' said D'Arcy, 'but mixed with the rubies there are beryls. I am at this moment describing a beryl in some verses. The setting of the stones is surely quite peculiar.' 'Yes,' said Jamrach. 'It is the curiosity of the setting more than the value of the gems which caused it to be sent to me. I have offered it to the London jewellers, but they will only give me the market-price of the stones and the gold.' While he was talking I pulled out of my breast pocket the cross, which had remained there since I received it from my mother the evening before.