The recovering of Uncle Popacatapetl
On the counter there lay a very odd-looking old gentleman, dressed in rags and tatters in about equal proportions. His hands and face were quite yellow, and wherever there was a tatter, or there wasn’t a rag, and he showed through, he was yellow there too. His boots were in very bad repair, and a great golden toe stuck out of one, and a golden heel out of the other: in fact, there could be no doubt at all that he was made of pure gold, and as he was being repaired, he was also either an aunt or an uncle. But though one of David’s aunts had a slight moustache, he had never yet seen an aunt with a long beard and whiskers, and so without doubt there was Uncle Popacatapetl.
The bootmaker and his wife were repairing him, which they did by driving nails into him, so as to tack down the rags over the tatters. If there was a very big tatter, which they could not cover with the rag, they nailed on anything else that was handy. In some places they had filled up the gaps with pieces of newspaper, match-boxes, and bits of leather and sealing-wax, and balls of wool, and apples and photographs. While this was going on, Uncle Popacatapetl kept up a stream of conversation, interspersed with laughing.
‘Anyhow it can’t hurt him much,’ said David to himself.
‘Delicious, delicious!’ said Uncle Popacatapetl. ‘Nail the toe of my boot a little more firmly on to the toe of me. Put a paper-knife there if you can’t cover up the hole. Now my gloves.’
He put on a pair of thick white woollen gloves that came up to his elbow.
‘Would you like them nailed on too, sir?’ asked the shoemaker.
‘By all means. Put a nail in each finger, and three on the wrist, and ninety-eight round my elbows. Did you gum the gloves inside, before I put them on?’
‘I glued them well,’ said the shoemaker’s wife.