p. Beside him was a slender girl, almost as tall as he was, with dark
brown hair and brown eyes. She wore a rust-brown sweater and a brown
skirt, and low-heeled walking-shoes.

Irene Gresham went into the introductions, the newcomers shook hands with
Rand and were advised that the style of address was "Jeff," rather than
"Colonel Rand," and then Dot suggested going up to the gunroom. Irene
Gresham said she'd stay downstairs; she'd have to let the others in.

"Have you seen this collection before?" Pierre Jarrett inquired as he and
Rand went upstairs together.

"About two years ago," Rand said. "Stephen had just gotten a cased
dueling set by Wilkinson, then. From the Far West Hobby Shop, I think."

"Oh, he's gotten a lot of new stuff since then, and sold off about a
dozen culls and duplicates," the former Marine said. "I'll show you
what's new, till the others come."

They reached the head of the stairs and started down the hall to the
gunroom, in the wing that projected out over the garage. Along the way,
the girls detached themselves for nose-powdering.

Unlike the room at the Fleming home, Stephen Gresham's gunroom had
originally been something else--a nursery, or play-room, or party-room.
There were windows on both long sides, which considerably reduced the
available wall-space, and the situation wasn't helped any by the fact
that the collection was about thirty per cent long-arms. Things were
pretty badly crowded; most of the rifles and muskets were in circular
barracks-racks, away from the walls.

"Here, this one's new since you were here," Pierre said, picking a long
musket from one of the racks and handing it to Rand. "How do you like
this one?"

Rand took it and whistled appreciatively. "Real European matchlock; no,
I never saw that. Looks like North Italian, say 1575 to about 1600."

"That musket," Pierre informed him, "came over on the _Mayflower_."

"Really, or just a gag?" Rand asked. "It easily could have. The
_Mayflower_ Company bought their muskets in Holland, from some
seventeenth-century forerunner of Bannerman's, and Europe was full of
muskets like this then, left over from the wars of the Holy Roman Empire
and the French religious wars."

"Yes; I suppose all their muskets were obsolete types for the period,"
Pierre agreed. "Well, that's a real _Mayflower_ arm. Stephen has the
documentation for it. It came from the Charles Winthrop Sawyer
collection, and there were only three ownership chan