The cobbler in Hart Lane

Text 1: Boots for the winter, by Edwin Marchbank

An original diary written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

My boots had let in water since Michaelmas, so on Tuesday I carried them to Mr Pettigrew, the cobbler in Hart Lane. His shop was no wider than a cupboard, and he worked beneath a single window with a lamp burning beside him even at noon. He turned each boot over, pressed his thumb into the worn heel and told me that the uppers were sound, though the soles were past saving. He would not take my money in advance. ‘Pay me when they keep your feet dry,’ he said, and chalked my name upon the left sole so that the pair should not be confused with the dozen others hanging from hooks along his wall.

Give one phrase that shows the cobbler’s shop was very small.