Fond of animals Cole was, too. On his bench a profligate magpie harped on the wires of his cage, and over the leather thong that held his knives and awls and pincers there were always three or four pigeons in wicker cages--plain homers, that knew their way to Holdsworth and Brotherton and Booth. Should a man from one of these places be interested in (say) the Horwick weather, it was easily arranged that the tossing up of a blue or black or mixed bird should mean that there was thunder about, or that rain was likely; while if you were able to write, you could convey, with as much detail as you pleased, the state of the atmosphere or the set of the wind. The pigeons were frequently changed. The clogger’s shop was known as “The Gazette.” Cole the clogger had one gift that endeared him to his gossiping neighbours, and to Back o’ th’ Mooin especially--that of mimicry; and Cole vowed that no such pair of legs as the supervisor’s had ever passed his window. The clogger recognised the chance of his lifetime. “Eh!” he cried one day, to one or two laughter-loving souls gathered in his basement, “but he pods down th’ croft like I can’t tell ye what--sitha!” He ducked his head into his fat shoulders, crooked his knees, and began to make a little creeping perambulation among his tubs of soaking leather. “Pit, pat, pit, pat--like a cat on a hot bak’stone--and his laugh--a sort of whinney--‘Hn! hn!’ like summat snapping i’ th’ bridge of his nose. A haw on his eyes an’ all----” Then the clogger was seized with a rare idea. “By Gow! I can just show ye! Pass me my coat!” he cried. He got them to button the coat about his shoulders, with his arms inside and the sleeves empty and dangling. Then on his hands he thrust a pair of clogs. He puffed his cheeks out, blinked rapidly with his eyes, and began to waddle with his hands up and down his bench. Roars of laughter broke out. That, to be sure, was just Cope--Cope to a T! It was a’most worth sending a pigeon off for. Cole would never beat that!--And Cole, in an artist’s transport, practised little variations. There was free ale for a month for Cole.