After all this, he took a piece of common glass, and scraped the sides and bottoms of the soles, and heel-balled the sides of the soles and heels, and the boots were made.  He did not try any other ornamental work.  Of course the young lad could not do this without the help of a cobbler, to shew him what and how to do each portion of his boot-making; but the man was frightened at having so apt a pupil, and begged pardon for his former neglect; for though they were not all they might have been; they were boots.

“I see,” said he, “if some people neglect their work, there are sure to be others about who will soon leave them no business to do.”

After this, he would sit for quite half a day at his work without going round to the “Cobbler’s Arms.”  Some people said it was the wax that got on his seat that made him do it; but I do not think it was.

[Illustration:  The Little Gardener]

A flower lives, a flower dies, And we so stand and fall; Some flowers waft scent to the skies, And pleasure give to all.

THE LITTLE GARDENER.

There was no nicer garden in all Surrey than Mr. Woffle’s.  A funny name you’ll say, but he couldn’t help that.  One day he came home, and after first kissing his three children, who were all fairly good ones—­you know what I mean, neither better nor worse than most little children you and I know—­said, the governess, before he went to business, had mentioned that they had of late attended to their lessons, and he should be pleased to grant them anything in reason.  They all blushed,—­Eva, a soldier’s coat colour!  James, a light red! and Edwin, a rose-lozenge hue!  The fact was, they had all been saying how they should like to gather some flowers and have a game at playing at lady and gentleman and gardener.

They spoke right out and told their father what was in their minds.

He said “By all means, my dears.”

Tom became gardener.  You can guess who were the others.  A very gentlemanly one he was, too.  Full of nice bows and smiles.  As for Eva, she looked quite the grown lady, and acted so well, that when she put her hand in her pocket for her purse, Edwin was quite surprised to find that only threepenny and fourpenny pieces came out of it.

“Now what sort of bouquets would your ladyship like me to cut?” asked Tom, holding up a very pretty rose before his sister.

“I have consulted his lordship, here,” answered, Eva, very grandly, “and I’ll have ten dozen in five minutes, like this one in my hand!”

“I’m pleased, your ladyship,” said Tom, respectfully, “that you give me plenty of time to execute so large an order, or I might not have been able to have come up with them to time!”

“Oh! great people are never in a hurry,” quietly remarked Edwin.

Tom cut all the flowers he knew could be spared from the greenhouse, and her ladyship and his lordship took them and gave them to a poor girl whose sick mother wanted some little pleasure; and the girl sold the flowers for gentlemen’s button-holes.