crackers to be expended in his honour, and he gave them full
sixpence more than any one else. He would like an illumination once
a month; for it must not be concealed that, in spite of gardening,
of newspaper reading, of jaunting about in his little cart, and
frequenting both church and meeting, our worthy neighbour begins to
feel the weariness of idleness. He hangs over his gate, and tries
to entice passengers to stop and chat; he volunteers little jobs all
round, smokes cherry trees to cure the blight, and traces and blows
up all the wasps'-nests in the parish. I have seen a great many
wasps in our garden to-day, and shall enchant him with the
intelligence. He even assists his wife in her sweepings and
dustings. Poor man! he is a very respectable person, and would be a
very happy one, if he would add a little employment to his dignity.
It would be the salt of life to him.

Next to his house, though parted from it by another long garden with
a yew arbour at the end, is the pretty dwelling of the shoemaker, a
pale, sickly-looking, black-haired man, the very model of sober
industry. There he sits in his little shop from early morning till
late at night. An earthquake would hardly stir him: the
illumination did not. He stuck immovably to his last, from the
first lighting up, through the long blaze and the slow decay, till
his large solitary candle was the only light in the place. One
cannot conceive anything more perfect than the contempt which the
man of transparencies and the man of shoes must have felt for each
other on that evening. There was at least as much vanity in the
sturdy industry as in the strenuous idleness, for our shoemaker is a
man of substance; he employs three journeymen, two lame, and one a
dwarf, so that his shop looks like an hospital; he has purchased the
lease of his commodious dwelling, some even say that he has bought