_Customer._ Humph! I can make shift with that. But this won't do at all. Tight across the instep and pinches the toes awfully. (_Aside._) Hang it! it's a beastly bad fit everyway; but that it wouldn't suit to me change just now, I'd throw the confounded things on his hands and go elsewhere. _Shoemaker (aside)._ He looks grumpy; I must mind my eye, or I shall lose his custom. And that wouldn't suit my books a bit--just now. (_Aloud._) Awfully sorry, I'm sure, m'Lord. We must try again. _Customer._ You ought to have got the measure of my foot better than this, especially when I handed you my old lasts. _Shoemaker._ Well, m'Lord, you see, you've a bit--ahem!--_outgrown_ 'em like, don't you see, m'Lord? _Customer._ _Outgrown_ them? What do you mean? Feet don't _grow_ at my time of life. _Shoemaker (aside)._ How shall I put it so as not to huff him? Bunions _are_ a growth; so are corns--of a kind. (_Aloud._) Why, m'Lord, I think--I--a--fancy your last pair--Gladstone highlows they were--weren't they?--trying shoes for tender feet, m'Lord--must have been just a trifle too small, and--ahem!--compressed your feet a little, _at the joints_, m'Lord. _Customer (aside)._ By Jove, he's right. G.'s tight fits have galled me for some time past, and the last pair he made me I simply couldn't get on. (_Aloud._) Hang it, man, what has that to do with it? Your business is to fit my feet as they are. If you can't do it---- _Shoemaker (hastily)._ _Can't_, m'Lord? No such word in our shop, m'Lord. I flatter myself we could fit the biggest beetle-crusher ever bunion'd into the shape of a giant potato or a Californian nugget. Much more _your_ shapely foot, m'Lord, which, if it has been nubblyfied a leetle by misfits, will soon recover its proper proportions--under proper treatment. _Customer._ Well, off with this boot, anyhow. You'll have to make it longer and wider, ease it here and slacken it there, before _I_ can wear it. _Shoemaker._ Very good, m'Lord. (_Aside._) Doosed imperative, but I can't afford to offend him. Though I never expected an old-established high-class firm like ours would have stooped to tout for any of botching G.'s old customers. There's Mr. JOSEPH BRUMMAGEM, now, fancy my having to kneel at _his_ feet, and take _his_ measure! More particular than this one, if anything, and puts him up to half his objections, I believe. Well, well, trade's bad, and we mustn't be too scrupulous, I suppose. Besides, some of G.'s old customers seem drifting back to the old shop we thought was just about shutting up, and that won't do at any price. _Customer (irritably)._ What are you muttering and murmuring about?