For," said she, "we have lived long in much comfort as we are, and
have need of nothing; but when you grow old, or if it should please
Heaven that you become disabled, you will then be glad of your
savings."

But to this the cobbler would not listen. "No," said he, "if we save
the money it may be stolen, but if we spend it well, we shall have
the use of what we buy, and may sell it again if we are so minded."

He then proposed one purchase after another, and each was more foolish
than the rest. When this had gone on for some time, one morning he
exclaimed: "I have it at last! We will buy the house. It cannot be
stolen or lost, and when it is ours we shall have no rent to pay, and
I shall not have to work so hard."

"He will never hit on a wiser plan than that," thought the widow; "it
is not to be expected." So she fully consented to this arrangement,
which was duly carried out; and the bargain left the cobbler with a
few shillings, which he tied up in a bag and put in his pocket, having
first changed them into pence, that they might make more noise when he
jingled the bag as he walked down the street.

Presently he said; "It is not fit that a man who lives in his own
house, and has ready money in his pocket too, should spend the whole
day in labouring with his hands. Since by good luck I can read, it
would be well that I should borrow a book from the professor, for
study is an occupation suitable to my present position."

Accordingly, he went to the professor, whom he found seated in his
library, and preferred his request.

"What book do you want?" asked the professor.

The cobbler stood and scratched his head thoughtfully. The professor
thought that he was trying to recall the name of the work; but in
reality he was saying to himself: "How much additional knowledge one
requires if he has risen ever so little in life! Now, if I did but
know where it is proper to begin in a case full of books like this!
Should one take the first on the top shelf, or the bottom shelf, to
the left, or to the right?"

At last he resolved to choose the book nearest to him; so drawing it
out from the rest, he answered--

"This one, if it please you, learned sir." The professor lent it to
him, and he took it home and began to read.

It was, as it happened, a book about ghosts and apparitions; and the
cobbler's mind was soon so full of these marvels that he could talk of
nothing else, and hardly did a stroke of work for reading and