40 History of Gutta-Percha Willie.

ing as if for a little friendly chat about something
small, and then suddenly starting asunder as if in |
astonished anger, with a portentous hiss, you might
have taken him for an automaton moved by springs,
and imitating human actions in a very wonderful
manner—so regular and machine-like were his
motions, and so little did he seem to think about
what he was at. A little passing attention, a hint
now and then from his head, was sufficient to keep ©
his hands right, for they were so used to their work,
and had been so well taught by his head, that they
could pretty nearly have made a pair of shoes of
themselves; so that the shoemaking trade is one
that admits of a great deal of thought going on in
the head that hangs over the work, like a sun over
the earth ripening its harvest. Shoemakers have
distinguished themselves both in poetry and in
prose; and if Hector Macallaster had done so in
neither, he could yet think, and that is what some
people who write both poetry and prose cannot do.
But it is of infinitely more importance to be able
to think well than merely to write ever so well;
and, besides, to think well is what everybody ought
to be or to become able to do.

Hector had odd ways of looking at things, but I
need not say more about that, for it will soon be
plain enough. Ever since the illness from which
he had risen with a weak spine, and ever-working
brain, and a quiet heart, he had shown himself not