"I can make dem quickly; id is a slack
dime."

I answered: "Please, please! I want boots all round--every kind!"

"I will make a vresh model. Your food must be bigger." And with utter
slowness, he traced round my foot, and felt my toes, only once looking up
to say:

"Did I dell you my brudder was dead?"

To watch him was painful, so feeble had he grown; I was glad to get away.

I had given those boots up, when one evening they came. Opening the
parcel, I set the four pairs out in a row. Then one by one I tried them
on. There was no doubt about it. In shape and fit, in finish and
quality of leather, they were the best he had ever made me. And in the
mouth of one of the Town walking-boots I found his bill.

The amount was the same as usual, but it gave me quite a shock. He had
never before sent it in till quarter day. I flew down-stairs, and wrote
a cheque, and posted it at once with my own hand.

A week later, passing the little street, I thought I would go in and tell
him how splendidly the new boots fitted. But when I came to where his
shop had been, his name was gone. Still there, in the window, were the
slim pumps, the patent leathers with cloth tops, the sooty riding boots.

I went in, very much disturbed. In the two little shops--again made into
one--was a young man with an English face.

"Mr. Gessler in?" I said.

He gave me a strange, ingratiating look.

"No, sir," he said, "no. But we can attend to anything with pleasure.
We've taken the shop over. You've seen our name, no doubt, next door.
We make for some very good people."

"Yes, Yes," I said; "but Mr. Gessler?"

"Oh!" he answered; "dead."

"Dead! But I only received these boots from him last Wednesday week."

"Ah!" he said; "a shockin' go. Poor old man starved 'imself."

"Good God!"

"Slow starvation, the doctor called it! You see he went to work in such
a way! Would keep the shop on; wouldn't have a soul touch his boots
except himself. When he got an order, it took him such a time. People
won't wait. He lost everybody. And there he'd sit, goin' on and on--I
will say that for him not a man in London made a better boot! But look
at the competition! He never advertised! Would 'ave the best leather,
too, and do it all 'imself. Well, there it is. What could you expect
with his ideas?"

"But starvation----!"

"That may be a bit flowery, as the sayin' is--but I know myself he was
sittin' over his boots day and nig