who are the practically sagacious, prefer tough grain for the teeth.
Woodseer's munching of his nuts awakened to fond imagination the picture
of his father's dinner, seen one day and little envied: a small slice of
cold boiled mutton-flesh in a crescent of white fat, with a lump of dry
bread beside the plate.

Thus he returned to the only home he had, not disheartened, and bearing
scenes that outvied London's print-shops for polychrome splendour, an
exultation to recall. His condition, moreover, threw his father's life
and work into colour: the lean Whitechapel house of the minister among
the poor; the joy in the saving of souls, if he could persuade himself
that such good labour advanced: and at the fall of light, the pastime
task of bootmaking--a desireable occupation for a thinker. Thought flies
best when the hands are easily busy. Cobblers have excursive minds.
Their occasional rap at the pegs diversifies the stitchings and is often
happily timed to settle an internal argument. Seek in a village for
information concerning the village or the state of mankind, you will be
less disappointed at the cobbler's than elsewhere, it has been said.

As Gower had anticipated, with lively feelings of pleasure, Mr. Woodseer
was at the wonted corner of his back room, on the stool between two
tallow candleflames, leather scented strongly, when the wanderer stood
before him, in the image of a ball that has done with circling about a
stable point.

'Back?' the minister sang out at once, and his wrinkles gleamed:

Their hands grasped.

'Hungry, sir, rather.'