"Yes, Talcom is a good fellow. He'll recommend a gold brick, and then, to prove his sincerity, he'll turn round and buy it himself. He held me off for a long time. Of course I never expected him to make a brother of me—our lines keep us too far apart for that—but he's friendly, and has done me many a favor. But I lived here a long time under suspicion, and whenever anything was stolen they naturally looked to me. But, gradually, I convinced them that I was inclined to be honest."
"By going to church?" I inquired.
"Oh, no, by accepting a challenge from a rival shoemaker to fight a duel. The fellow backed down; his custom came to me, and he went away. I am under great obligations to that man—best friend I ever had; don't know what would have become of me if he hadn't backed out."
"But you would have fought him."
"Well, I don't know about that. I do know, however, that I felt like hugging him when he refused to fight. Yes," he went on, after a short pause and an industrious puffing at his pipe, "Talcom is all right. But you never can tell which way he'll jump in his likes and dislikes. He may like a man and he may not, and he's as sudden as a gun going off. You caught him—not by anything you could have said or done, but you just happened to fit him."
"All hands at home?" came a voice as whining as a mendicant's plea, and, looking up, I recognized the gaunt and drooping form of the notorious Bugg Peters. He stood for a moment in the doorway, and then came forward with a slouching lurch, with a grin and nod at me and a bow of profound respect for the "boss" of the shop.
"Look here, Bugg," said the shoemaker, "I can't do anything with that old boot. It's beyond all repair. Take it out somewhere and throw it away."
"Fur mercy sake, Joe, don't talk like that," protested the notorious one, dropping upon a bench and humping over as if his upper muscles had given away. "Don't snatch all the hope right out of a feller's hand. That boot belongs to my youngest son-in-law, and unless he gets it mended to-day he can't come to town to-morrow. Joe, you've just got to fix it. Say, got about as fine a chunk of a boy down at my house as you ever see'd in your life. Nan's."
"Nan's? How many does that make?" the shoemaker asked.
"Let me see. Why, it makes somewhere in the neighborhood of six for Nan. And her old man is settin' right there by the fireplace now a-shakin' fitten to kill himself. He ain't no account at all except in the fall of the year, and then I take him out in the woods and let him shake down persimmons. Mister (speaking to me), they tell me you are goin' to start a show here, and I'll fetch my folks to see it if I can raise a few chickens and sell 'em. Thought I'd get some aigs to-day. Got three old hens and I thought I'd put 'em to work. But, look here, Joe, you ain't in earnest about not bein' able to do nothin' with that boot?"