The man with the pipe smiled and set his book down when the young man entered.
"Hello," he said. "Welcome to my traveling curiosities shop."
He stood, then, from the armchair, and walked around behind the tables and cases.
The items laid out on them and within them were... well, the word he knew that the younger generation would use for them was 'random.' On the table he stood behind, now, with the young man on the other side, the following things were resting: a glass perfume bottle shaped like a cat, an antique magnifying glass, a silver letter opener with an ivory handle, a tooth that had once belonged to a Silverback gorilla, an authentic pair of Day of the Dead dolls, positioned so that they were dancing together, and a key on a length of red ribbon.