Nine, however, is the generally accepted figure, and the poet shows such a strong animus that we can scarcely accept his counter-statement. Nine would have suited the requirements of his metre as well as three, and we can only conclude that the fraction he took was one of his own devising. "The three tailors of Tooley Street" achieved lasting fame, it will be remembered, by sending a petition to Parliament commencing, "We, the people of England." The cobbler, and eke his wife, share in the immortality that popular proverbs go far to confer. It will be remembered how, as an illustration of the general inconsistency and unexpectedness of things, "The cobbler's wife is the worst shod." "She goeth broken shoone and torne hoses," says a mediæval bard, "but," as may be expected from the general unaccountableness of such matters, "Who is worse shod than the shoemaker's wife, With shops full of new shooes all the days of her life?" Cobblers pursue a steady and somewhat monotonous business which seems to favour reflection, and the followers of the craft have supplied from their ranks not a few famous men. It will be remembered, however, how in one case a rebuke became necessary, when the cobbler in question criticised adversely a shoe-latchet in one of the pictures of Apelles. The great painter accepted the criticism and repainted the fastening, whereupon the critic extended his self-imposed functions, and objected to the drawing of the foot. Apelles felt the time had come to put down his own foot, and advised the cobbler to stick to his trade. The ancient proverb that this little incident evoked has its modern counterpart in the saying, "Let the cobbler stick to his last," a proverb as valuable to-day as it was of service in the studio of Apelles, when people will insist in talking about what they do not understand. The brewer would find a dictum after his own heart in the old lines-- "He that buys land buys many stones, He that buys flesh buys many bones, He that buys eggs buys many shells, But he that buys ale buys nothing else." The kitchen realm has supplied a very expressive proverb in "The fat is in the fire," and such sayings as "Sweep before your own door"; "The pitcher goes oft to the well, but is broken at last"; "If you enjoy the fire you must put up with the smoke"; "A watched pot never boils"--all suggested by the service of the house; while even the breakages so common in these regions are found, by those who do not have to pay for them, to have a bright side, for "Were it not for breakage there would be no potter's trade." It is so fatally easy to be generous at another person's expense.