Explore "A Crown of Straw" by Allen Upward on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
IN the inner room of a small, dimly lighted house, half hidden behind the dark walls of the arsenal of Stuttgart, in Germany, a group of three men were occupied in loading a pistol.
Their method of proceeding was singular. They were seated around a small deal table which stood at the far end of the room from the door. On the table was a small open lamp, and the dirty yellow flame which struggled upwards from its untrimmed wick flared upon the faces of the three, and brought them into pallid relief against the surrounding shadow. As the sickly light wandered off into the corners of the bare, gloomy room, it revealed the obscure form of a fourth man, younger than any of the first three, who sat by himself on a bench next to the door.