When at last I went I was surprised to find that outside one of the two little windows of his shop another name was painted, also that of a bootmaker-making, of course, for the Royal Family.

The old familiar boots, no longer in dignified isolation, were huddled in the single window.

Inside, the now contracted well of the one little shop was more scented and darker than ever.

And it was longer than usual, too, before a face peered down, and the tip-tap of the bast slippers began.

At last he stood before me, and, gazing through those rusty iron spectacles, said: "Mr…, isn't it?" "Ah! Mr. Gessler," I stammered, "but your boots are really too good, you know! See, these are quite decent still!" And I stretched out to him my foot. He looked at it.

"Yes," he said, "People do not want good hoots, it seems." To get away from his reproachful eyes and voice I hastily remarked: "What have you done to your shop?" He answered quietly: "It was too expensive. Do you want some boots?" I ordered three pairs, though I had only wanted two, and quickly left.

I had, I do not know quite what feeling of being part, in his mind, of a conspiracy against him; or not perhaps so much against him as against his idea of boot.

One does not, I suppose, care to feel like that; for it was again many months before my next visit to his shop, paid, I remember, with the feeling: "Oh! Well, I can't leave the old boy -- so here goes! Perhaps it'll be his elder brother!" For his elder brother, I knew, had not character enough to reproach me, even dumbly.

And, to my relief, in the shop there did appear to be his elder brother, handling a piece of leather.

"Well, Mr. Gessler," I said, "how are you?" He came close, and peered at me.