e was served.
It was a serious thing for the shoemaker, for he had a good business,
and there was no other house or cottage available in the neighbourhood.

In the interval before the notice expired announcements appeared that
the estate to which Shott's holding belonged was to be sold by auction
in lots. Shott himself was well-to-do, and promptly determined to become
the purchaser of his farm.

There were several bidders at the sale, and Shott was pushed to the very
end of his tether. He managed, however, to outbid them all, though he
trembled at his own temerity; and the farm was on the point of being
knocked down to him when a lawyer's clerk at the end of the room went
L50 better. Shott took a gulp of whisky to steady his nerve and
desperately put the price up fifty more. The lawyer's clerk immediately
countered with another hundred, and looked as though he was ready to go
on. That was the knock-down blow. Shott put his hands in his pockets,
leaned back in his chair, and dolefully shook his head in response to
all the coaxings and blandishments of the auctioneer. The hammer fell.
"Name, please," was called; the lawyer's clerk passed up a slip of
paper, and a thunderbolt fell on the company when the auctioneer read
out, "Mr. Thomas Hankin." Hankin had bought the farms for L4700. "Cheque
for deposit," said the auctioneer. A cheque for L470, previously signed
by Hankin, was immediately filled in and passed up by the lawyer's
clerk.

It was, of course, Mrs. Abel who had advanced the money to the shoemaker
on prospective mortgage, less a sum of L1000 which he himself
contributed--the savings of his life. The situation became interesting.
Here was Hankin, under notice to quit, now become the rightful owner of
his own house and the landlord of his landlord. Everyone read what had
happened as a deep-laid scheme of vengeance on the part of Hankin and
Mrs. Abel, of whose part in the transaction no secret whatever was made.
It was taken for granted that the evicted man would now retaliate by
turning Shott out of his highly cultivated farm and well-appointed
house. The jokers of the Nag's Head were delirious, and drank gin in
their beer for a week after the occurrence. Snarley Bob alone drank no
gin, and merely contributed the remark that "them as laughs last, laughs
best."

Meanwhile the shoemaker, seated at his last, was carefully pondering the
position in the light of the principles of Bentham and Mill. He
considered all