The chorus of the books.(Ryan)

I WAS STROLLING in the sunshine down that slope of Melbourne's Collins Street between Scots Church and the Melbourne Town Hall. It remains an agreeable block of city civility, even though (like everything else in this world) it isn't "what it used to be".

I preferred it, for example, when the windows of Georges emporium displayed apparel of unimaginable splendour at unattainable prices. Not being a youth of envious disposition, I could admire without coveting the tweed jackets hand-stitched in Bond Street, and the sublime mellow leather in the British brogues from Messrs Crockett & Jones.

Not every Georges window shopper was immune to the sting of the fourth deadly sin, forever lying there in ambush. Soon after the death, years ago, of Chief Justice X, I discussed the deceased's career with one of his surviving judicial brothers; the two old boys had been lifetime friends. I remarked how tastefully well X had always dressed. Just for one instant there flashed a spark of ancient envy: "Well, naturally. Even as a student he could afford to shop at Georges."

But the store was mainly a world for ladies, and when fashionable female attire grew scantier, it sometimes seemed that more cachet was attached to a Georges label than there was fabric.

My two "almost dowager" aunts shaped their slender budgets around a couple of annual visits to Georges. If they bought an item as tiny as a lipstick they would carry it home proudly in a conspicuous Georges wrapping bag. Each new season's fashion gowns, displayed in elegance and splendour, always drew the aunts for an inspection, if not always for a purchase.

Directly across the road, the single gold-painted word "Colbert" designated an establishment much smaller in size--indeed a mere double-fronted shop. But among the cognoscenti it ranked equal in celebrity and costliness.

"Colbert" carried its understatement, to the point almost of shouting about it. Centrally in each window, set against resting which blocked all view of the shop's interior, resting on elegant carpet of dove grey, was a celadon Chinese urn. They were a pair, each roughly the size of a modern home barbecue gas bottle. Year in, year out, the display remained unchanged, though it was scrupulously vacuumed and dusted. To the casual passer-by, "Colbert" conveyed impenetrable discretion and tight security: if you were the sort of person who had to enquire what went on in there, you weren't the sort of person who was likely to be admitted.