“You will not,” said Jeremy. “Trying your pen at editorials, ain’t you?” “Have you been setting those up, too?” “Exactly. You’ll land. You’ve got the knack. The slick, smooth, oily trick of making the thing seem what it ain’t. So pretty soon I’ll have to take that back about your having the soul of a louse. You’ll be worse than that. I’ll tell you what you’ll be.” And he told, naming a very ancient and much blown-upon profession. “That’ll be enough an’ some-to-carry from you,” said the Boot & Shoe Surgeon indignantly. “Get out of my place an’ don’t come back until you’ve cleaned your dirty tongue.” Resentment of his brusque dismissal was far remote from Mr. Nicholas Milliken’s philosophic mind, if one were to judge by the cheerful smile with which he rose. “All right, old moozle-head!” he returned affectionately. “He fires me about once a week,” he explained to Jeremy. “That’s when he can’t stand any more good, plain facts. They boil over on him and out I go, with the steam. Don’t you mind me, either, young feller. You’ll see I’m right, one day. We’re all bound upon the Wheel of Things, as the old Lammy said to Kim. Supprised, are you, that I know Roodyerd Kipling?” He preened himself with a childish vanity. “I read everything! The old Lammy was a bit of a Socialist himself. All bound upon the Wheel of Things. And if I see a little clearer than you, it’s only because I happen to be bound a turn or two higher up.” The ineffable patronage of this amused Jeremy into good humor. “I’ll call on you for that apology, though, one of these days,” he said to the parting guest, Eli Wade looked after Milliken with a frown. “Them shoes of his have got a gallows gait,” he declared. “Lawless paths! Lawless paths! Why do I stand his bitter tongue? I guess it’s because he makes me think. I wish I had his education,” sighed the old man. “Where did he get it?” “Picked it up. Libraries, night schools, and the like. He was a New England mill-hand, always in hot water. Stirrin’ up labor troubles an’ all that. Picked up typography an’ drifted out here. A quirky mind an’ a restless one, an’ a bad course it sets for his feet to follow,” said the gentle, one-ideaed old philosopher of foot-gear. “But not a bad heart, Nick has n’t. Come in again, young gentleman,” he added. “Not in the way of trade. Come in an’ talk with the old man. One of you newspaper gentlemen drops in for a chat, often. Mr. Galpin of The Guardian. You’ll know him, I guess?” “Very well.” “Them are his spare shoes, yonder. Rough, ordinary, plain articles. Plodders. But good wearing stuff in ’em an’ right solid on the ground, every inch. Slow-moving,” he nodded thoughtfully. “Yes; they’ll move slow, but they won’t never wobble. An’ don’t think to trip up the man that walks in ’em. It ain’t to be done.” “I believe you’re right, there.”