Comethup got quite into the habit of paying hurried visits to the shoemaker's shop, and then lingering for a while, in the fascination of the man and of the place. Very often he found 'Linda there, seated silently beside the man on the bench. Very few customers ever seemed to come there, and the few who did took no notice of the children. The old man's moods varied greatly: sometimes he was in a savage humour and worked fiercely, hammering away at the leather as if for dear life, and taking no notice of the children; at other times he would sit, with his hands clasped idly on his apron, staring dreamily out of the window, and occasionally muttering to himself. On one such occasion he called Comethup suddenly to him and put his arm about his shoulders and stretched out the other hand toward the window. "Look, boy, look!" he cried. "What do you see?" Comethup gazed blankly through the window, the panes of which were of old and common glass that distorted everything seen through them. He shook his head, and looked round at the old man. "Nothing," he said, "only the houses, and the church spire at the end of the street." The shoemaker shook him gently but impatiently. "Look again," he whispered; "move your head from side to side, as I move it--so. See the houses leap and jump and tremble; see the spire of the church double up like a reed, and seem as if it would plunge down into the street. Again--move your head again--see how they leap and tremble and fall!" Comethup, a little frightened, moved his head, and then laughed faintly. "But it's only the glass," he said. "Ah, but a man may sit here--a man poor and humble and with no power--and yet dream that he has the power so to sweep away those who have wronged him; to bring their fine houses tumbling about their ears, like things built of cards. Boy, I tell you if a man can dream that, he is stronger and greater than those who have the power to build--eh?" Comethup obediently said, "Yes, I suppose so," and the old man laughed, and took up his work and fell to hammering. Comethup, after he reached home, tried the plan with other windows, and trembled a little when he remembered the fierce whisper in which the old man had spoken; he wondered, too, why he should carry in his breast the desire to injure any one, or to wreck what he had built. Meanwhile, Brian had to be reckoned with; it was impossible to ignore him completely, and the hours which Comethup spent with him were growing fewer and fewer. But one morning he sprang suddenly into the very midst of it all, as it were, and quite accidentally.