I am reading "Quality" by John Galsworthy and there are some phrases and lines which I could not grasp. I thought that this site would be the perfect place to ask this question.
My Questions:
- What does the following mean? I think it means that by looking at those shoes one could understand that the shoes were the epitome of endurance.
- "…the tall brown riding boots with marvelous sooty glow, as if, though new, they had been worn a hundred years"
- What does the next passage mean? I think that the first sentence means that the shoes made by him were affordable so one never fell into debts with them. I am unsure of the second part of the paragraph
- "When one grew old and wild and ran up bills, one somehow never ran them up with Gessler Brothers. It would not have seemed becoming to go in there and stretch out one’s foot to that blue iron-spectacled glance, owing him for more than — say — two pairs, just the comfortable reassurance that one was still his client.".
You can read the story here: https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/g/galsworthy/john/inn/chapter2.html
Thanks for your help.