Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/43

 Just then I noticed something, and an idea struck me―about the most up-to-date idea that ever struck me in my life. I noticed that Stiffner was limping on his right foot this morning, so I said to him:

'What's up with your foot?' putting my hand in my pocket.

'Oh, it's a crimson nail in my boot,' he said. 'I thought I got the blanky thing out this morning; but I didn't.'

There just happened to be an old bag of shoe-maker's tools in the bar, belonging to an old cobbler who was lying dead drunk on the verandah. So I said, taking my hand out of my pocket again:

'Lend us the boot, and I'll fix it in a minute. That's my old trade.'

'Oh, so you're a shoemaker,' he said. 'I'd never have thought it.'

He laughs one of his useless laughs that wasn't wanted, and slips off the boot―he hadn't laced it up―and hands it across the bar to me. It was an ugly brute―a great thick, iron-bound, boiler-plated navvy's boot. It made me feel sore when I looked at it.

I got the bag and pretended to fix the nail; but I didn't.

'There's a couple of nails gone from the sole,' I said 'I'll put 'em in if I can find any hobnails, and it'll save the sole,' and I rooted in the bag and found a good long nail, and shoved it right through the sole on the sly. He'd been a bit of a sprinter in his time, and I thought it might be better for me in the near future if the spikes of his running-shoes were inside.

'There, you'll find that better, I fancy,' I said,