“All right, old man—all right; I’ll do ’em. Of course they wouldn’t do for you,” he continued; “bad, too, as we want the money. Said it was what always came of employing relatives; but he did it out of charitable feeling—so as to give me a lift. Called me a bungler, too, when, look here, mother, how nicely I made a little mountain on that side to hold his bunion, and a little Greenwich-hill on that side to accommodate his favourite corn. That’s working for relations, that is. Dressed up a bit, too, this morning to take ’em home, so as not to disgrace him by looking too shabby, and made Union Jack walk behind to carry the blue bag, same as if I was a sooperior kind of tradesman, and his servants shouldn’t look down on me. Said I was Mr Richard Shingle, too, when the maid opened the door. But it was all no go. Another of my failures, old gal. Tell you what it is, mother, it’ll be what the drapers call a terrific crash if it goes on like this.”
“But, Dick dear, you don’t mean that he won’t have the boots at all?”
“That’s just what I do mean. He’s shied ’em on my hands. ’Taint as if he’d shied ’em on my feet.”
“Oh, dear, dear, dear!” ejaculated Mrs Shingle. “Dear!” said Dick, trying to raise a feeble laugh. “That’s just what they are. I can’t afford to wear a pair of handsome boots like them. Only look at ’em. Leather cost me nine shillings before I put in a stitch.”
“I declare, it’s too bad, Dick,” whimpered Mrs Shingle; “and us so badly off too. Brother, indeed! He’s worse than—”
“There, that’ll do,” said Dick, taking off his coat, “Don’t you get letting on about him, mother, because he is my brother, you know. Blood is thicker than water.”
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it, Dick, if it’s ten times as thick,” said Mrs Shingle, stabbing away at her boot-binding as if the kid leather were Maximilian Shingle’s skin.
“No, you don’t,” said Dick, rolling up his sleeves, and tying on his leather apron, before going to the chimney glass, and putting a piece of ribbon round his rather long hair, apparently to embellish his countenance, but really to keep the locks out of his eyes when he bent down over his work. “No, mother; that’s because you’re put out, and cross, and won’t see it; but blood is thicker than water, ain’t it, Hoppy?”
“Hey?” said the old fellow, taking his pipe out of his mouth.
“I say blood is thicker than water, ain’t it?”