"And you won't claim it as yours?"
"No, I won't claim it as mine."
"You are a good-hearted friend!" cried the clerk fairly hugging him in his delight, and then capering out of the door with his verses.
"And you are an evil-hearted fool!" said Sachs, looking after him. "But the pit you fall into will be of your own digging."
The cobbler knew that the clerk would never be able to find the right tune to fit the words, and that he was liable to forget even the words. So he felt no uneasiness when Beckmesser took them away with him.
The next visitor to his workshop was Eva, looking very winsome in her festival attire of white. She had come over to see what had become of Walter, though she had made another excuse for her errand.
"Herr Sachs," she said, answering his jovial greeting, "I came over to see what was the matter with one of these shoes you finished for me last night. It does not feel comfortable."
She placed one small foot upon a rest, and the cobbler knelt to see what was the matter. But he did not discover it until Walter, dressed in the rich garb of a knight, entered the room.
"Ah, that is where the shoe pinches!" he exclaimed quietly; and willing to allow the young people a few minutes to themselves he took off the shoe and went chuckling to his last, where he began to hammer furiously. But seeing that the two others were rather shy in his presence he paused and looked up.
"Mistress Eve," he said, "I take back what I said about this young man not being able to sing. He sang me a fine song awhile ago, but the last part was lacking. Perhaps he will sing it for you through to the end."