For the first time the man put down his hammer and chisel, and looked at us. He spoke slowly, in a thick and husky voice. He said:
“What d’ye think I keep boots for—to smell ’em?”
He was one of those men that begin quietly and grow more angry as they proceed, their wrongs apparently working within them like yeast.
“What d’ye think I am,” he continued, “a boot collector? What d’ye think I’m running this shop for—my health? D’ye think I love the boots, and can’t bear to part with a pair? D’ye think I hang ’em about here to look at ’em? Ain’t there enough of ’em? Where d’ye think you are—in an international exhibition of boots? What d’ye think these boots are—a historical collection? Did you ever hear of a man keeping a boot shop and not selling boots? D’ye think I decorate the shop with ’em to make it look pretty? What d’ye take me for—a prize idiot?”
I have always maintained that these conversation books are never of any real use. What we wanted was some English equivalent for the well-known German idiom: “Behalten Sie Ihr Haar auf.”
Nothing of the sort was to be found in the book from beginning to end. However, I will do George the credit to admit he chose the very best sentence that was to be found therein and applied it. He said:
“I will come again, when, perhaps, you will have some more boots to show me. Till then, adieu!”
With that we returned to our cab and drove away, leaving the man standing in the centre of his boot-bedecked doorway addressing remarks to us. What he said, I did not hear, but the passers-by appeared to find it interesting.
George was for stopping at another boot shop and trying the experiment afresh; he said he really did want a pair of bedroom slippers. But we persuaded him to postpone their purchase until our arrival in some foreign city, where the tradespeople are no doubt more inured to this sort of talk, or else more naturally amiable. On the subject of the hat, however, he was adamant. He maintained that without that he could not travel, and, accordingly, we pulled up at a small shop in the Blackfriars Road.
The proprietor of this shop was a cheery, bright-eyed little man, and he helped us rather than hindered us.