The Van Buren press., 1898-02-05
THE cOBB1ER'S STORY.
a BY Lawrence Bertram. Z
e>0>0~0~o

I'm DENlNE, the cobbler, pushed
up his spectacles and gave me q
whimsical glance.
"It's GURUS" he remarked, cts GU
rus what q difference it makes to a
mans family how he is put out of the
world! Hang him, and his folks feel
disgraced forever; cut off his head with
a guillotine, and"
The old man made d flourish with
his head, as though the matter were
one for serious scongratulation
"Leastways," he added, returning to
his mending again, "that's the way
some folks think. Lord! how set up
NJ. Daftte was about it, to be sure, and
all on account of an ancestor of his who
happened TO lose his head on the scaf-
fold with Louis XVI!
"Who was NJ. Laftte? Well, he was
n Frenehman who once took lodgin's
on the upper floor of this house, an old
ramshackle affair now, but once a mani
sion, as you can see, and as fashionable
a street as there was in London.
$50 have heard,' I assented.
"The Frenehman," he continued,
"was man somewhere about 60 years
of age, tall and stiff in his bearing; and
though his clothes were worn and shah
by-lookin', his linen, noticed, was neat
and tidy, and as white as snow"
bloomsbury said he, when / had
showed him the room-Im the care
taker of the building, you see, sir-'ees
"a respectable quataire of the city,
ees it not so, Meester Concierge?'
More than respectable, mossoo,
said |, a trife tartly. 1T was once a
fashionable part of London
He sighed as he looked about the
room.
"'Eet will do, Meester Concierge
he would always call me that, sir,
though l told him time and again it
wasn't my name-'eet will do for the
praisant,' with flourish of his white
hand, as though the next month would
find him in Park Lane; and so he en-
gagged the room, and paid for it in ad-
vance.
III q ltN hOul
his sick wife, his daughter, Mile. JUS
tine, and Polly, rs cunning parrot as
l ever see.
"Purty? Well, / don't know. For
a foreigner ma'm'selle might hev been
called purity. She was a slight little
thing with great big eyes, and long
eyelashes throwing deep shadders into
'em like grasses into brook"
He cleared his throat and spread his
hands, as though the matter of looks
was OF no consequen nee.
"But, Lord!" he exclaimed with sud-
den animation, chow she could sing!
Gay songs, too, in French and Eye
Italian, with sometimes an English bal
lad or so. Why, sir giving the boot a
tremendous whaclI, there was fortin'
in her voice, fortin' as big as PATHS;
and only for the fact of that precious
ancestor of hers a-losin' of his head on
the scaffold with Louis XVI. she'd q
made it, too, as easy as-that!" giving
the boot another whack.
'But the mossoo! How stiff he did
draw himself up, to be sure, at the
very mention of it.
Understand me-" the cobbler ex-
planned, at wasn't out of any officious
meddlecomeness that | first suggested
the thing to him. No; it wasn't till he
was behindhand in his rent, and his
poor eyes-he was q diamond cutter,
you see, sir, and sat all day with his eye
glued to a glass-was giving out, that
l thought of some way in which ma mn
selle could help him better than by en-
broidering.
'The day the diamond got lost, my,
how they did go on! l thought the
house was a-fre; and when run up to
see. there was the old lady moaning,
and ma 'm'selle and mossoo a-turnin'
everything topsy-turvy in the room.
"'What diamond?' says I, wonderin'
If they all had gone crazy, and then
between the old lady and her husband,
l found that she had been more ailing
than usual that day, and in one of his
journeys from his bench to the bed,
d~NdlAlh bll liC iitth AOob tiAt VIA
mond he was cuttin', an extry large and
fine one.
"High and low we searched for IT, in
every crack and corner. The bedding.
the old rug, everything was shook out.
"'Twas no use, though, and finally
we give IL up; and what was worse, of
course the poor gentleman had TO make
1t up. 1t was tough, can tell you, for
at the best of times they only about
made ends meet.
II thought of ma'm'selle's voice, rare
enough TO bring a guinea for every
note, but thanks TO that aristocrat
whose head had tumbled on the same
plank with louis XVT's, dareu't men
ton e.