She was seized with the desire to ask him who he was, whence he came, and whether he had known her son long.

But suddenly he himself put a question, leaning forward with a swing of his whole body.
"Who made that hole in your forehead, mother ?" His question was uttered in a kind voice and with a noticeable smile in his eyes; but the woman was offended by the sally.

She pressed her lips together tightly, and after a pause rejoined with cold civility: "And what business is it of yours, sir ?" With the same swing of his whole body toward her, he said: "Now, don't get angry! I ask because my foster mother had her head smashed just exactly like yours.

It was her man who did it for her once, with a last--he was a shoemaker, you see.

She was a washerwoman and he was a shoemaker.