A difficulty with a turf which was cut too thick at one corner made a queer diversion. The old man was wearing new boots, and already I knew how he had bargained for them at Wilby's shop, getting a pair of cork socks, besides laces and dubbin, thrown in for his money. And now, this little corner of grass obstinately sticking up, "Let's see what Mr. Wilby 'll do for 'n," said Bettesworth, and he stamped his new boot down hard and the thickened sod yielded. "Do they hurt you at all?" I asked then. "No," he said, "not no more'n you may expect. New boots always draws your feet a bit. That one wrung my foot a little yest'day. When I got home, 'fore ever I lit my candle, I'd unlaced 'n and fetched 'n off. I flung 'n down. But I be very well pleased with 'em. 'Tis jest across here by the seam where they hurts.... No, I en't _laced_ 'em tight. I don't hold with that, for new boots. Of course they en't leather; can't be for the money. When you've paid for the makin' what is there left for leather, out of five-and-sixpence? No, they _can't_ be leather.... "Little Tim" (Bettesworth's five-year-old chum) "jest got some new uns, with nails in 'em. Nex' pair he has, he says, he's goin' to have 'em big, with big nails, jest like his father's. 'You ben't man enough yet, Tim,' I says. But he got some little gaiters too. 'Now I be ready,' he says, 'if it snows or anything.'" As a rule we endured in silence the minor discomforts incidental to work like ours, in a raw winter air. But there were exceptions, as when we agreed in hating to handle the tools with our hands so caked over with the black earth. To me, indeed, the spade felt as if covered with sandpaper, so that sometimes it was less painful to use fingers, although of course they did but get the more thickly encrusted with soil by that device. This state of our hands was the cause of another small distress: one could not touch a pocket-handkerchief. And of this also we spoke, once, when I all but laughed aloud at what Bettesworth said. It began with his testily remarking, "My nose is more plag' than enough!" There was, indeed, and had been for a long time, a glistening drop at the end of it. My own was in like case, no pocket-handkerchief being available. So I said, "Mine would be all right in a second, if I could only get to wipe it." Then said Bettesworth, innocently (for he had no suspicion how funny his reply was), "Ah, but that's what you can't do, without makin' your face all dirty."