one-eyed cobbler was at
work, astride of his little bench with a brown pot of coals beside him.
From time to time, when he had drawn the waxed yarn out through the
leather on both sides, he blew into his black hands. Griggs stood still
and looked at him in idle indetermination, and only struggling against
the power that drew him towards the stairs.

"A fine north wind," observed Griggs, by way of salutation.

"It seems that it must be said," grunted the old man, punching a fresh
hole in the sole he was cobbling. "To me, my fingers say it. It has
always been a fine trade, this cobbling. It is a gentleman's trade
because one is always sitting down."

"I am going to change my lodging," said Griggs.

The cobbler looked up, resting his dingy fists upon the bench on each
side of the shoe, his awl in one hand, the other half encased in a
leathern sheath, black with age.

"After so many years!" he exclaimed. "The world will also come to an
end. I expected that it would. Now where will you take lodging?"

"Where I can find one. I want a little apartment--"

"It seems that your affairs go better," observed the old man,
scrutinizing the other's face with his one eye.

"No. No better. That is the trouble. I want a little apartment, and I do
not want to pay for it till the end of the first month."

"Then wait till the end of the month before you move to it, Signore."

"That is impossible."

"Then there is a female," said the cobbler, without the slightest
hesitation. "I understand. Why did you not say so?"

Griggs hesitated. The man's guess had taken him by surprise. He
reflected that it could make no difference whether the old cobbler knew
of Gloria's coming or not.

"There is a signora--a relation of mine--who has come to Rome."

"A fair signora? Very beautiful? With a little eye of the devil? I have
seen. Thanks be to heaven, one eye is still good. You are dark, and your
family is fair. How can it interest me?"

"What? Has she gone out?" asked Griggs, in sudden anxiety. "When?"

"I had guessed!" exclaimed the cobbler, with a grunting laugh, and he
ran the delicate bristles, which pointed the yarn, in opposite
directions through the hole he had made, caught one yarn round the knot
on the handle of the awl and the other round the leather sheath on his
left hand. He drew the yarn tight to his arm's length with a vicious
jerk.

"When did the signora go out?" enquired Griggs, repeating his question.

"It may be h