ever, since he came to lodge here, possessed more than
one pair of boots. This fact had been for her a lasting source of
annoyance; for it meant that she had to polish Mr. Noaks' boots always
in the early morning, when there were so many other things to be done,
instead of choosing her own time. Her annoyance had been all the keener
because Mr. Noaks' boots more than made up in size for what they lacked
in number. Either of them singly took more time and polish than any
other pair imaginable. She would have recognised them, at a glance,
anywhere. Even so now, it was at a glance that she recognised the toes
of them protruding from beneath the window-curtain. She dismissed the
theory that Mr. Noaks might have gone utterly unshod to the river. She
scouted the hypothesis that his ghost could be shod thus. By process
of elimination she arrived at the truth. "Mr. Noaks," she said quietly,
"come out of there."

There was a slight quiver of the curtain; no more. Katie repeated her
words. There was a pause, then a convulsion of the curtain. Noaks stood
forth.

Always, in polishing his boots, Katie had found herself thinking of him
as a man of prodigious stature, well though she knew him to be quite
tiny. Even so now, at recognition of his boots, she had fixed her eyes
to meet his, when he should emerge, a full yard too high. With a sharp
drop she focussed him.

"By what right," he asked, "do you come prying about my room?"

This was a stroke so unexpected that it left Katie mute. It equally
surprised Noaks, who had been about to throw himself on his knees and
implore this girl not to betray him. He was quick, though, to clinch his
advantage.

"This," he said, "is the first time I have caught you. Let it be the
last."

Was this the little man she had so long despised, and so superciliously
served? His very smallness gave him an air of concentrated force. She
remembered having read that all the greatest men in history had been of
less than the middle height. And--oh, her heart leapt--here was the
one man who had scorned to die for Miss Dobson. He alone had held out
against the folly of his fellows. Sole and splendid survivor he stood,
rock-footed, before her. And impulsively she abased herself, kneeling at
his feet as at the great double altar of some dark new faith.

"You are great, sir, you are wonderful," she said, gazing up to him,
rapt. It was the first time she had ever called him "sir."

It is easier, as Michelet