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Hankin's landlord was Peter Shott, whose holding consisted of two small farms which had been joined together. In the house belonging to one of these farms lived Hankin, a sub-tenant of Shott. To Shott there came, in due course, a hint from an exalted quarter that it would be to his interests to give Hankin notice to quit. Shott was willing enough, and presently the notice was served.
These meetings, which were regularly addressed by Hankin, Mrs. Abel used frequently to attend. The effect of this was twofold.
Hankin neglected nothing which might contribute to the success of his work, and applied himself to its principles with the same thoroughness which distinguished his handling of the Utilitarian Standard. One of his sons had emigrated to the United States and become, in course of time, the manager of a large boot factory in Brockton, Mass.
Of this the reader must judge from the sequel; for we shall hear much of him anon. The second man was Tom Hankin, shoemaker. A man of strong contrasts was Tom; an octogenarian when I first knew him, and an atheist, as he proudly boasted, "all his life."
This ignorant and undemocratic attitude never failed to divert Hankin from argument to recrimination, which was all the more bitter because Bob had a way of implying, mainly by the movement of his horse-like eyes, that he himself was one of those who knew precisely what "what" was.
'All these things you're mad on, Snarley, he sez to me one day, 'are nowt but matter and force. 'Matter and force, I sez; 'what's them? And then he lets on for half a' hour trying to tell me all about matter and force. When he'd done I sez, 'Tom Hankin, there's more sense in one o' them old shoes than there is in your silly 'ead.
He also stated that he had made a small fortune by speculating in town-lots, and, hearing that Hankin was alive, he was prepared to send him any further sum of money that might be necessary to secure him a comfortable old age.
For many years before his death Snarley entered neither the church nor the chapel; and, I regret to say, he had a very low opinion of both. This was one of the few matters on which he and Hankin were agreed, though for opposite reasons. Hankin objected to these institutions because they went too far; Snarley because they went not nearly far enough.
All consideration of "quality" was strictly eliminated, for in this matter Hankin held rather with Bentham than with Mill. The sum was an extremely complicated one to work, and gave more exercise to Hankin's powers of moral arithmetic than either armaments, or women's suffrage, or the State Church. Mrs.
From him Hankin received patterns and lasts and occasional consignments of American leather. This latter he was inclined, in general, to despise. Nevertheless, it had its uses. He found that an outer-sole of hemlock-tanned leather would greatly lengthen the working life of a poor man's heavy boot; though for want of suppleness it was useless for goods supplied to the "quality."
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