“Is that a reminder to go and pay?” said Trent, with a sneer. “Not exactly, Fred,” replied Richard. “I enter in this little book the names of the streets that I can’t go down while the shops are open. This dinner to-day closes Long Acre. I bought a pair of boots in Great Queen Street, last week, and made that ‘no thoroughfare’ too. There’s only one avenue to the Strand left open now, and I shall have to stop up that to-night with a pair of gloves. The roads are closing so fast in every direction, that in about a month’s time, unless my aunt sends me a remittance, I shall have to go three or four miles out of town to get over the way.”--C. Dickens, _The Old Curiosity Shop_, viii (1840). =Sword.= (For the names of the most famous swords in history and fiction, see _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_, 869.) Add the following:-- Ali’s sword, Zulfagar. Koll, the Thrall’s sword, named Greysteel. Ogier, the Dane, had two swords, made by Munifican, viz., Sauvagine and Courtain or Curtāna. He [_Ogier_] drew Courtain his sword from out its sheath. W. Morris, _Earthly Paradise_, 634. Strong-o’-the-Arm had three swords, viz., Baptism, Florence, and Graban made by Ansias. _Sword_ (_The Marvel of the_). When King Arthur first appears on the scene, he is brought into notice by the “Marvel of the Sword;” and Sir Galahad, who was to achieve the Holy Graal, was introduced to knighthood by a similar adventure. That of Arthur is thus described: In the greatest church of London ... there was seen in the churchyard, against the high altar, a great stone, foursquare, like to a marble stone, and in the midst thereof, was an anvil of steel a foot in height, and therein stuck a fair sword, naked by the point, and letters of gold were written about the sword that said thus: _Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of England._ [_Arthur was the only person who could draw it out, so he was acknowledged to be the rightful king._]--Pt. i. 3, 4. The sword adventure of Sir Galahad, at the age of 15, is thus given: The king and his knights came to the river and they found there a stone floating, as it had been of red marble, and therein stuck a fair and rich sword, and in the pomell thereof were precious stones, wrought with subtil letters of gold. Then the barons read the letters, which said in this wise: _Never shall man take me hence, but only he by whom I ought to hang, and he shall be the best knight of the world._ [_Sir Galahad drew the sword easily, but no other knight was able to pull it forth._]--Sir T. Malory, _History of Prince Arthur_, iii. 30, 31 (1470). A somewhat similar adventure occurs in the _Amădis de Gaul_. Whoever succeeded in drawing from a rock an enchanted sword, was to gain access to a subterranean treasure (ch. cxxx.; see also lxxii. xcix.).