Making up a lunch pail o' lovely junk -- the padlock being the loveliest of all.[/caption]In my travels today, I happened upon a box of junk hardware. It was beside the garbage behind a house, but I still loitered until I could catch the attention of someone in the house. When I did, they confirmed it was garbage. I proceeded to root like a truffle-picking porker. There were hose clamps (yay!), and really old vice grips, engraved with someone's three initials -- "John... someone," the owner tried to remember. Knowing he had a "customer." he had brought out a second box-worth. He was Italian -- old, short, and stocky. He really looked like the kind of man who'd spent his life using the kind of tools, and stuff, he was now throwing out. It was more evidence of typecasting that he was so unsentimental about it. "Atsa old lock -- a good chunk a brass," he remarked when I singled out the thing which looked like a padlock, but didn't have a typical-looking key hole, just a thin, little slot on the left side of the case, at the top, by the shackle. The case bore the letters "WLS" in high relief. There was nothing that looked like a key to open it, so the only thing for it was a trip to a locksmith.