The postillion took the shoes and examined them. “So you made these shoes?” he cried at last.
“To be sure I did; do you doubt it?”
“Not in the least,” said the man.
“Ah! ah!” said I, “I thought I should bring you back to your original opinion. I am, then, a vagrant Gypsy body, a tramper, a wandering blacksmith.”
“Not a blacksmith, whatever else you may be,” said the postillion, laughing.
“Then how do you account for my making those shoes?”
“By your not being a blacksmith,” said the postillion; “no blacksmith would have made shoes in that manner. Besides, what did you mean just now by saying you had finished these shoes to-day? a real blacksmith would have flung off half-a-dozen sets of donkey shoes in one
morning, but you, I will be sworn, have been hammering at these for days, and they do you credit, but why? because you are no blacksmith; no, friend, your shoes may do for this young gentlewoman’s animal, but I shouldn’t like to have my horses shod by you, unless at a great pinch indeed.”
“Then,” said I, “for what do you take me?”
“Why, for some runaway young gentleman,” said the postillion. “No offence, I hope?”