Buying new shoes - The thing that came back home.

He was shorter than me. The hint of a smile played about his lips, as if he had just heard a joke and was now smiling in the most natural way. Nor had the joke been a vulgar one: it was the kind of elegant pleasantry that the minister of foreign affairs might have told the crown prince at a garden party a generation ago, causing the surrounding listeners to titter with delight.