470 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF
cobbler's pipe, which was glowing below the table like a red-hot coal. The conversation, brief as it was, predisposed Mr. Weller strongly in his landlord's favour, and raising himself on his elbow he took a more lengthened survey of his appearance than he had yet had either time or inclination to make.
He was a sallow man — all cobblers are ; and had a strong bristly beard — all cobblers have ; his face was a queer, good-tempered, crooked featured piece of workmanship, ornamented with a couple of eyes that must have worn a very joyous expression at one time, for they sparkled yet. The man was sixty by years, and Heaven knows how old by im- prisonment, so that his having any look approaching to mirth or con- tentment was singular enough. He was a little man, and being half doubled up as he lay in bed, looked about as long as he ought to have been without his legs. He had got a great red pipe in his mouth, and was smoking and staring at the rushlight in a state of enviable placidity.
" Have you been here long?" enquired Sam, breaking the silence which had lasted for some time.
- Twelve years," replied the cobbler, biting the end of his pipe as he
spoke.
"Contempt?" enquired Sam.
The cobbler nodded.
" Veil, then," said Sam, with some sternness, "wot do you persevere in bein' obstinit for, vastin' your precious life avay in this here magni- fied pound? Vy don't you give in, and tell the Chancellorship that you're wery sorry for makin' his court contemptible, and you won't do so no more ? '*
The cobbler put his pipe in the corner of his mouth while he smiled, and then brought it back to its old place again, but said nothing.
- ' Vy don't you?" said Sam, urging his question strenuously.
" Ah," said the cobbler, you don't quite understand these matters. What do you suppose ruined me, now ? "
"Vy,"said Sam, trimming the rushlight, "I s'pose the beginnin' wos, that you got into debt, eh ? "
'^ Never owed a farden," said the cobbler; try again."
" Veil, perhaps,'^ said Sam, you bought houses, vich is delicate English for goin' mad ; or took to buildin', vich is a medical term for bein' incurable."
The cobbler shook his head, and said — " Try again."
" You didn't go to law, I hope ?" said Sam, suspiciously.
- ' Never in my life," replied the cobbler. '^ The fact is, I was ruined
by having money left me."
- 'Come, come," said Sam, "that von't do. I vish some rich enemy
'ud try to vork my destruction in that 'ere vay. I'd let him/' V Oh, I dare say you don't believe it," said the cobbler, quietly smoking his pipe. " I wouldn't if I was you j but it's true for all that."
- ' How wos it?" inquired Sam, half induced to believe the fact already
by the look the cobbler gave him.
" Just this," replied the cobbler ; ^' an old gentleman that I worked
