Dublin Folktales by Brendan Nolan

busy Thomas Street. An intoxicatingly strong smell of leather and dyes pervaded the shop. The premises was so old that its dark corners were lit by gas light. The shoemaker was a cordial character, but contrary at times when lounging visitors impeded his work. At such times he was less tactful. Bowing to economic reality and changes in demand, he allowed his son to begin to stock and sell ready-made shoes in the front part of the shop. He thought little of the new staples and glue-line shoes that his customers wanted to try on, rather than wait for a decent pair to be fashioned for them. But that was progress.
    His son was away when Brian Byrne stood at the counter with a single new shoe. On his feet were borrowed plimsolls. Their owner sat up the street with his feet drawn up beneath him so no one would notice his feet were now bare. Brian placed the single shoe on the counter and waited for the shoemaker to ask him what he wanted. ‘My mother said can I have the other shoe,’ he said with all the conviction of a condemned man arguing his innocence.
    ‘What other shoe?’
    ‘She wanted to buy these shoes for me yesterday for school. So she brought this one home to see if it would fit me. It does, so she says she’ll take the pair. She left the cheque yesterday, she told me to tell you.’ The shoemaker told Brian to go home or he’d tell his mother on him. Brian replied that his mother had a brother home from the merchant navy and she would send him in to get the pair of shoes that was paid for by cheque. The brother was a deaf mute and there was no talking to him when he was angry, Brian added. And the cheque man would have to hear aboutit as well and he would probably be cross when he heard what had happened to his good cheque. The shoemaker offered to give Brian a clout about the ears if he didn’t get out, but such was the passion Brian brought to his performance that the shoemaker began to wonder if his son had actually stocked the shoes and had given one out to see if it would fit the boy.
    By now, the argument had given courage to the other boys who gathered around the shop to lend support. They did this by pretending they did not know Brian at all and they were interested and fair observers of all that went on. The shoemaker responded by offering to let the dogs out to eat them. He had no dogs, but the threat made the boys quieten down and move away from the door. That only made room for passing adults to peer in at the goings-on, for everyone in Dublin loves a good argument. In the heel of the hunt, the shoemaker could get nothing else done until he resolved the issue. ‘Give me the shoe’, he demanded. ‘What is your mother’s name and address, so I can tell the cheque man to check up on this?’ Personal ID was unheard of at this time so it was easy for Brian to give a completely bogus name and address.
    Quite naturally, the shoemaker could not find the missing shoe in the shop. He looked at Brian and at his feet and, with the acute knowledge of the true shoemaker, knew the exact size that would fit the boy before him. He pulled out a pair of shoes that were somewhat of the same colour and design as the cheap shoe before him. He handed them over to Brian with a gruff order to try them on before he left the shop.
    ‘Both of them, and give those old runners back to that young lad sitting on his own up the street while all your gang is down here telling lies.’ An astonished Brian discovered that the shoes fitted him perfectly and that the shoemaker was not going to give him back the only shoe of the previous pair. He kept that he said for reference. Maybea one legged boy will make use of it he said, as Brian and the gang took themselves off towards distant home.
    His mother was astonished when he returned home wearing a different pair of shoes to the ones he had left home in that morning. By now an accomplished liar, Brian patiently explained that the other pair had been pinching him. So, he went back to