Just as he reached it the clock struck twelve.
On the very spot of ground where the stranger now stood some aged people remembered that old Michael Johnson had formerly kept his book-stall.
The little children who had once bought picture-books of him were grandfathers now.
"Yes; here is the very spot!" muttered the old gentleman to himself.
There this unknown personage took his stand and removed the three-cornered hat from his head.

It was the busiest hour of the day.

What with the hum of human voices, the lowing of cattle, the squeaking of pigs, and the laughter caused by the merry-andrew, the marketplace was in very great confusion.

But the stranger seemed not to notice it any more than if the silence of a desert were around him.

He was rapt in his own thoughts.