Mr. Perkin cleared his throat. He was very good at getting strangers to tie his shoes, but he was not used to using his persuasive charms on his wife.

“It’s nine-thirty,” he said. “I need to go to work.”

“Then go,” Mrs. Perkin said.

“I can’t very well go without my shoes!”

Mrs. Perkin jumped in her chair. She was not used to being shouted at, especially first thing in the morning, and most certainly not at breakfast.

“I’m sorry, dear,” she said. “I had forgotten.” She stood and quickly crossed the floor to his side. She kneeled by her husband’s feet. She picked up the laces and drew them as tightly as she could before tying them together in an impossible knot. Then she rose from the floor and left the room.

Mr. Perkin finished his coffee and stood up. He noticed that his shoes were quite snug, and as he exited his house and began his morning jaunt to work, he realized that they were snug to the point of discomfort, and by the time he reached the candy store, his feet were pounding and he was carrying on with a slight limp. He curtly asked one of the cashiers to loosen the knots, but his wife had tied them so tightly that they would not come undone. The cashier suggested cutting the laces to free his feet, but Mr. Perkin was not only an extraordinarily persuasive man, he was a frugal one as well, and ruining a perfectly good pair of laces was, to him, a crime.

“Just forget it,” he snapped, and began to imagine torturous ways to get even with his wife. He kicked open the door to his office, threw himself in a chair, and propped his feet up on his desk to release the pressure. It was only then that Mr. Perkin noticed the splash of gray and white along the side of his heel. He swiped it with his finger, brought his finger to his nose, and recognized the smell of the henhouse.

The cashier who had failed at untying Mr. Perkin’s shoes was named Michael Sheehy. He was a dark man with a slight frame and a lazy eye that slid around in its socket when he spoke. He had been a cashier there for five years. In that time he had often tied Mr. Alan Perkin’s shoes. Michael did not particularly enjoy crouching on the ground and relacing his employer’s shiny Italian leathers, but he did enjoy the benefits of being the only male employee at Mr. Perkin’s candy store.