Emilio Zanti. Peter was a very different person now from that little boy
who had once followed Stephen's broad figure into that little green room
and stared at Mr. Zanti's cheerful countenance, but it all seemed a very
little time ago. Outside in the shop there was the same suit of armour--on
the shelves, the silver candlesticks, the old coins, the little Indian
images, the pieces of tapestry--within the little room the same sense of
mystery, the same intimate seclusion from the outer world.... On the other
occasion of seeing him Mr. Zanti had been dimmed by a small boy's wonder.
Now Peter was old enough to see him very clearly indeed.
Mr. Zanti seemed fat only because his clothes were so tight. He was bigly
made and his legs and arms were round, bolster fashion--huge thighs and
small ankles, thick arms and slender wrists. His clothes were so tight that
they seemed in a jolly kind of way to protest. "Oh! come now, must you
really put us on to anything quite so big? We shall burst in a minute--we
really shall."
The face was large and flat and shining like a sun, with a small nose
like a door knocker and a large mouth, the very essence of good-humoured
surprise. The cheeks and the chin were soft and rounded and looked as
though they might be very fat one day--a double chin just peeped round the
corner.
He was a little bald on the top of his head and round this bald patch his
black hair clustered protectingly.
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