第26章

So he had spent a busy morning in renovating his entire stock with double coats of Peerless Gloss,the stock that the whole neighbourhood knew by sight--the watertight bluchers with soles an inch thick that a woolwasher from Botany had ordered and left on his hands;the pair of kangaroo tops that Pat Riley had ordered the week he was pinched for manslaughter;the pair of flash kid lace-ups,high in the leg,that Katey Brown had thrown at his head because they wouldn't meet round her thick calves;and half a dozen pairs of misfits into which half the neighbourhood had tried to coax their feet because they were dirt cheap.

But the pride of the collection was a monstrous abortion of a boot,made for a clubfoot,with a sole and heel six inches deep,that had cost Paasch weeks of endless contrivance,and had only one fault--it was as heavy as lead and unwearable.But Paasch clung to it with the affection of a mother for her deformed offspring,and gave it the pride of place in the window.And daily the urchins flattened their noses against the panes,fascinated by this monster of a boot,to see it again in dreams on the feet of horrid giants.This melancholy collection was flanked by odd bottles of polish and blacking,and cards of bootlaces of such unusual strength that elephants were shown vainly trying to break them.

The old man paused in his labours to admire the effect of his new arrangement,and suddenly noticed a group of children gathered about a man painting a sign on the window opposite.Paasch stared;but the words were a blur to his short sight,and he went inside to look for his spectacles,which he had pushed up on his forehead in order to dress the window.By the time he had looked everywhere without finding them,the painter had finished the lettering,and was outlining the figure of something on the window with rapid strokes.

Paasch itched with impatience.He would have crossed the street to look,but he made it a rule never to leave the shop,even for a minute,lest someone should steal the contents in his absence.As he fidgeted with impatience,it occurred to him to ask a small boy,who was passing,what was being painted on the window.

"Why,a boot of course,"replied the child.

Paasch's amazement was so great that,forgetting the caution of a lifetime,he walked across until the words came into range.What he saw brought him to a standstill in the middle of Botany Road,heedless of the traffic,for the blur of words had resolved themselves into:

JOSEPH JONES,BOOTMAKER.

Repairs neatly executed.

And,underneath,the pattern of a shoe,which the painter was finishing with rapid strokes.

So,thought Paasch,another had come to share the trade and take the bread out of his mouth,and he choked with the egotistical dread of the shopkeeper at another rival in the struggle for existence.Who could this be?he thought,with the uneasy fear of a man threatened with danger.

For the moment he had forgotten Jonah's real name,and he looked into the shop to size up his adversary with the angry curiosity of a soldier facing the enemy.Then,through the open door,he spied the familiar figure of the hunchback moving about the shop and placing things in order.He swallowed hastily,with the choking sensation of a parent whose child has at last revolted,for his rival was the misshapen boy that he had taken off the streets,and clothed and fed for years.Jonah came to the door for a moment,and,catching sight of the old man,stared at him fixedly without a sign of recognition.

And suddenly,with a contraction at his heart,a fear and dread of Jonah swept through Paasch,the vague,primeval distrust and suspicion of the deformed that lurks in the normal man,a survival of the ancient hostility that in olden times consigned them to the stake as servants of the Evil One.

He forgot where he was till the warning snort of a steam tram made him jump aside and miss the wheels of a bus from the opposite direction by the skin of his teeth.

And the whole street smiled at the sight of the bewildered old man,with his silvery hair and leather apron,standing in the middle of the Road to stare at a dingy shop opposite.

Paasch crossed the street and entered his door again with the air of a man who has been to a funeral.He had never made any friends,but,in his gruff,reserved way,he liked Jonah.He had taught him his trade,and here,with a sudden sinking in his heart,he remembered that the pupil had easily surpassed the master in dexterity.Then another fear assailed him.How would he get through his work?for most of it had passed through Jonah's nimble fingers.Ah well,it was no matter!He was a lonely old man with nothing but his fiddle to bring back the memories of the Fatherland.

The week ran to an end,and found Jonah out of pocket.He had planted himself like a footpad at the door of his old master to rob him of his trade and living;and day by day he counted the customers passing in and out of the old shop,but none came his way.As he stared across the street at his rival's shop,his face changed;it was like a hawk's,threatening and predatory,indifferent to the agony of the downy breast and fluttering wings that it is about to strike.

It maddened him to see the stream of people pass his shop with indifference,as if it were none of their business whether he lived or starved.The memory of his boyish days returned to him,when every man's hand was against him,and he took food and shelter with the craft of an old soldier in hostile country.Even the shop which he had furnished and laid out with such loving care,seemed a cunning trap to devour his precious sovereigns week by week.

True,he had drawn some custom,but it was of the worst sort--that of the unprincipled rogues who fatten upon tradesmen till the back of their credit is broken,and then transfer their sinister custom to another.

Jonah recognized them with a grim smile,but he had taken their work,glad of something to do,although he would never see the colour of their money.