Felix did. His gnarled hands had a little trouble with the small bronze buckles, but he managed. He walked back and forth inside the shop. A smile came over his weathered face. “That’s right nice,” he said. “I’d forgotten walking doesn’t have to feel like you’ve got a sack of bumpy beans under each foot.”

“Glad you like them,” George said; starting off the day with a sale always struck him as a good omen.

Felix, all at once, looked less happy than he had a moment before. “Guess I shouldn’t have said that. Now you’re going to charge me more on account of it.” He cast an apprehensive eye toward George. “What are you going to charge me?”

“That’s a good pair of sandals--you did say so yourself,” George answered. “I was thinking … six miliaresia.”

“Half a solidus?” Felix exclaimed. He made as if to throw the shoes at George. “I figured you’d say something more like two.”

After an argument they both enjoyed, they split the difference. Felix also promised to bring a sack of raisins to the shop the next time he was in Thessalonica. Maybe he would and maybe he wouldn’t. The four silver coins he did pay were enough for George to turn a profit on the deal.

“How are things treating you these days?” the shoemaker asked, to make sure no bad feelings lingered after the haggle--and because life would have been boring if he let people out of his shop without finding out what they knew.

“Not bad, not bad,” Felix answered. “Always a lot of fairies and such about, there away from town. It’s quiet here, God be praised: everybody inside the walls believes in Him, pretty much. Not like that out in the country, you know. Old ways hang on.”