He had thick lips and a thick nose, an
obstinate, manly expression; the other was a boy of about Manuel's
age, frail, thin, with a rascally look, and called Vidal.
Senor Ignacio and the three boys sat down around a wooden block formed
of a tree-trunk with a deep groove running through it. The labour
consisted in undoing and taking apart old boots and shoes, which
arrived at the shop from every direction in huge, badly tied bales and
in sacks with paper designations sewed to the burlap. The boot
destined to be drawn and quartered was laid upon the block; there it
received a stroke or more from a knife until the heel was severed;
then, with the nippers the various layers of sole were ripped off;
with the scissors they cut off buttons and laces, and everything was
sorted into its corresponding basket: in one, the heels; in others,
the rubbers, the latchets, the buckles.
So low had _The Regeneration of Footwear_ descended: it justified
its title in a manner quite distinct from that intended by the one who
had bestowed it.
Senor Ignacio, a master workman, had been compelled through lack of
business to abandon the awl and the shoemaker's stirrup for the
nippers and the knife; creating for destroying; the fashioning of new
boots for the disembowelling of old. The contrast was bitter; but
Senor Ignacio could find consolation in looking across at his
neighbour, he of the _Lion of The Shoemaker's Art_, who only at
rare intervals would receive an order for some cheap pair of boots.
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