a boot,
made for a clubfoot, with a sole and heel six inches deep, that had
cost Paasch weeks of endless contrivance, and had only one fault--it
was as heavy as lead and unwearable. But Paasch clung to it with the
affection of a mother for her deformed offspring, and gave it the pride
of place in the window. And daily the urchins flattened their noses
against the panes, fascinated by this monster of a boot, to see it
again in dreams on the feet of horrid giants. This melancholy
collection was flanked by odd bottles of polish and blacking, and cards
of bootlaces of such unusual strength that elephants were shown vainly
trying to break them.

The old man paused in his labours to admire the effect of his new
arrangement, and suddenly noticed a group of children gathered about a
man painting a sign on the window opposite. Paasch stared; but the
words were a blur to his short sight, and he went inside to look for
his spectacles, which he had pushed up on his forehead in order to
dress the window. By the time he had looked everywhere without finding
them, the painter had finished the lettering, and was outlining the
figure of something on the window with rapid strokes.

Paasch itched with impatience. He would have crossed the street to
look, but he made it a rule never to leave the shop, even for a minute,
lest someone should steal the contents in his absence. As he fidgeted
with impatience, it occurred to him to ask a small boy, who was
passing, what was being painted on the window.

"Why, a boot of course," replied the child.

Paasch's amazement was so great that, forgetting the caution of a
lifetime, he walked across until the words came into range. What he
saw brought him to a standstill in the middle of Botany Road, heedless
of the traffic, for the blur of words had resolved themselves into:

JOSEPH JONES, BOOTMAKER.
Repairs neatly executed.

And, underneath, the pattern of a shoe, which the painter was finishing
with rapid strokes.

So, thought Paasch, another had come to share the trade and take the
bread out of his mouth, and he choked with the egotistical dread of the
shopkeeper at another rival in the struggle for existence. Who could
this be? he thought, with the uneasy fear of a man threatened with
danger. For the moment he had forgotten Jonah's real name, and he
looked into the shop to size up his adversary with the angry curiosity
of a soldier facing the enemy. Then, through the open door,