tween his knees, and began to stitch with great gusto. Padna
admired the skilful manner in which he made the holes with his awl and
drew the wax-end with rapid strokes. Padna abandoned the impression that
the shoemaker was a melancholy man. He thought he never sat near a man
so optimistic, so mentally emancipated, so detached from the indignity
of his occupation.

"These are very small shoes you are stitching," said Padna, making
himself agreeable.

"They are," said the shoemaker. "But do you know who makes the smallest
shoes in the world? You don't? Well, well!... The smallest shoes in the
world are made by the clurichaun, a cousin of the leprechaun. If you
creep up on the west side of a fairy fort after the sun has set and put
your ear to the grass you'll hear the tapping of his hammer. And do you
know who the clurichaun makes shoes for? You don't? Well, well!... He
makes shoes for the swallows. Oh, indeed they do, swallows wear shoes.
Twice a year swallows wear shoes. They wear them in the spring, and
again at the fall of the year. They wear them when they fly from one
world to another. And they cross the Dead Sea. Did you ever hear tell of
the Dead Sea? You did. Well, well!... No bird ever yet flew across the
Dead Sea. Any of them that tried it dropped and sank like a stone. So
the swallows, when they come to the Dead Sea, get down on the bank, and
there the clurichauns have millions of shoes waiting for them. The
swallows put on their shoes and walk across the Dead Sea, stepping on
bright yellow and black stepping-stones that shine across the water like
a lovely carpet. And do you know what the stepping-stones across the
Dead Sea are? They are the backs of sleeping frogs. And when the
swallows are all safe across the frogs waken up and begin to sing, for
then it is known the summer will come. Did you never hear that before?
No? Well, well!"

A cat, friendly as the shoemaker himself, leapt on to Padna's lap. The
shoemaker shifted the shoe he was stitching between his knees, putting
the heel where the toe had been.

"Do you know where they first discovered electricity?" he asked.

"In America," Padna ventured.

"No. In the back of a cat. He was a big buck Chinese cat. Every hair on
him was seven inches long, in colour gold, and thick as copper wire. He
was the only cat who ever looked on the face of the Empress of China
without blinking, and when the Emperor saw that he called him over and
stroked him on the b