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They stood apart from the men, who seemed unconscious of their existence. The men were exactly such as one would have expected to find there beery and restless as to the eyes, quaintly shod, and with nondescript greenish clothes which for the most part bore traces of the yoke of the sandwich board. Only one amongst them was different.
They had scarcely entered, when a smart postilion came down the kitchen staircase, shod simply with thin pumps over which he intended to pull his heavy riding-boots, These he received from Antoine, slipping five louis into his hand at the same time, and turned for the man to throw his riding cape over his shoulders, a protection rendered necessary by the severity of the weather.
With the exception of a few disagreeable features which are sure to attend any business of that nature, I found it very pleasant. One day I drove into a small country village and stopped at a blacksmith's shop to have my horse shod. While waiting, I happened to drop into a large general store, and very soon entered into conversation with the proprietor, who was a jovial, good-natured fellow.
The twelve vessels carried in all thirty-eight guns. Each of the boats of the river-fleet defence had its bows shod with iron and its engines protected with cotton. This was also the case with the two sea-going steamers belonging to the State.
The peasants, generally speaking, do not witness the arrival of these visitors with much pleasure, the dandies more especially, who shod in varnished leather, always over-dressed, musked, and starched, attract, so they think, too much the attention of the young girls. Fathers, mothers, and, above all, lovers, are at once on the look out.
Arrived at his destination, the first object that presented itself to his view was a pair of very imperfectly shod feet elevated in the air with the soles upwards, which remarkable appearance was referable to the boy, who being of an eccentric spirit and having a natural taste for tumbling, was now standing on his head and contemplating the aspect of the river under these uncommon circumstances.
With this we worked while Gibson and Jimmy shod a couple of horses. A pair of poking brutes of horses are always away by themselves, and Mr. Tietkens and I went to look for, but could not find them. We took the shovel and filled up the emu water-hole with sand, so that the horses had to show themselves with the others at the pass at night.
"Oh, George has gone on a still-hunt for a manicure parlor. Ain't that a rave? He's gone finger- mad. He'd ought to have them front feet shod. He don't need a manicurist; what he wants is a blacksmith." "He is rather out of his latitude, so I wish you would keep an eye on him," Boyd said. "All right! I'll take him out in the park on a leash, but if he tries to bite anybody I'll have to muzzle him.
But an experienced eye would have fixed on him at once as the village blacksmith, after seeing the humble deference with which the big saucy fellow took off his hat and stroked his hair to the farmers; for Chad was accustomed to say that a working-man must hold a candle to a personage understood to be as black as he was himself on weekdays; by which evil-sounding rule of conduct he meant what was, after all, rather virtuous than otherwise, namely, that men who had horses to be shod must be treated with respect.
At the end of four days, during which I had fashioned and refashioned the thing at least fifty times, I had made a petul such as no master of the craft need have been ashamed of; with the second shoe I had less difficulty, and, by the time I had made the fourth, I would have scorned to take off my hat to the best smith in Cheshire. But I had not yet shod my little gry: this I proceeded now to do.
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