A customer left it in the shop. Black, wooden handle, eight ribs, one of them broken and mended with a twist of brass wire.
He put a lost-property notice on the door for three months.
Then he took it to the police station and had it logged. Six months later they rang and told him to come and collect it; nobody had claimed it and they could not dispose of it.
He donated it. The primary school was collecting wet-weather gear and it went into the box with a dozen cheap folding umbrellas.
In the second month of the new term it was in the umbrella stand outside his shop, handle outward.
He has never opened it in the rain. When it rains he uses the two-fifty disposables he sells.
One day he put it up to check the fabric for mildew.
There is wear around the edge of the canopy. A full ring of it, the fibres furred and lifting.
That is what happens when an umbrella is carried for years and the rim rubs against a coat.
He held it open at arm's length. The worn ring sits exactly at his shoulder.
He had the lad who works for him try it — half a head taller. It did not line up. The old woman from next door, a good deal shorter. It did not line up either.