CHAPTER XIII.
FREE COBBLERY.
“I suppose you’ll be looking out for a tenant for this house, when you’ve found somewhere for us to go?” queried Miss Jemima, at breakfast the next morning.
“Well, no,” replied her brother, “I think not.” “Why,” cried Miss Jemima, “I hope we are not to go on living in this poky little place!”
“No, that is not exactly my intention, either,” said “Cobbler” Horn. “We must, I suppose, remove to another house. But I wish this one to remain very much as it is; I shall want to use it sometimes.”
“Want to use it sometimes!” echoed Miss Jemima, in a mystified tone.
“Yes; you see I don’t feel that I can give up my lifelong employment all at once. So I’ve been thinking that I’ll come to the old workshop, now and then, and do a bit of cobbling just for a change.”
Here he paused, and moved uneasily in his chair.
“It wouldn’t do to charge anything for my work now, of course,” he continued; “so I’ve made up my mind to do little bits of jobs, now and again, without any pay, for some of the poor people round about, just for the sake of old times, you know.”
Miss Jemima’s hands went up with their accustomed movement of dismay.