"It's a some auld-farrand joke," said the cobbler, "but the fun
intil a thing doesna weir oot ony mair nor the poetry or the trowth
intil't."

"Who will say there was no providence in the loss of my shoe-sole!"
remarked Donal to himself. "Here I am with a friend already!"

The cobbler was submitting the shoes, first the sickly one, now the
sound one, to a thorough scrutiny.

"Ye dinna think them worth men'in', I doobt!" said Donal, with a
touch of anxiety in his tone.

"I never thoucht that whaur the leather wad haud the steik," replied
the cobbler. "But whiles, I confess, I'm jist a wheen tribled to ken
hoo to chairge for my wark. It's no barely to consider the time
it'll tak me to cloot a pair, but what the weirer 's like to git oot
o' them. I canna tak mair nor the job 'ill be worth to the weirer.
An' yet the waur the shune, an' the less to be made o' them, the
mair time they tak to mak them worth onything ava'!"

"Surely ye oucht to be paid in proportion to your labour."

"I' that case I wad whiles hae to say til a puir body 'at hadna
anither pair i' the warl', 'at her ae pair o' shune wasna worth
men'in'; an' that wad be a hertbrak, an' sair feet forby, to sic as
couldna, like yersel', sir, gang upo' the Lord's ain shune."

"But hoo mak ye a livin' that w'y?" suggested Donal.