Too Big for My Boots

Before returning to South Wales from Southampton, where I had been on business, I visited some shops in the city centre with the intention of buying a pair of suede shoes. Due to a malfunction of genes in my pre-birth stage, the big toes on both feet stick out about half an inch in front of their siblings making me take size 12 shoes instead of the more normal size 10 or 11 for a person of my size. There were plenty of suede shoes in the shops but none that fitted me. I returned to my car and headed north west along the A36 to Salisbury where I intended to have another go.
It was the same story - plenty of shoes up to size 11, but nothing else. I was not desperate for footwear but I had tried all the shoe shops in the area where I live and they were unable to provide. Bristol was the next large city on my route so I drove into a multi-storey car park adjacent to the main shopping area.
I started at the top of a long hill and worked my way downwards and received the same answer at each shoe shop I visited: "Perhaps sir would like to try a size 11 with a thinner pair of socks?" was one suggestion put to me by a shop assistant hoping for a quick sale. A traffic warden was more helpful and directed me to a shop down a narrow lane which he said was one of the oldest shoe shops in Bristol.
I followed his directions and eventually came across a cordwainer's shop of the old school. A brass bell announced my presence as I opened the door and an old man wearing a leather apron and pínce nez appeared from the nether region of his shop. For the umpteenth time I repeated my requirement and explained the trouble caused by my big toes. His was not the sort of shop where you could try on a multitude of shoes and select the ones that fitted best. This was a bespoke establishment where (A) your feet were measured, then, (B), you returned a few days later for a first fitting and (C), the final fitting before purchase.
I told the old man I lived in South Wales and that it would not be practicable for me to make two more trips to Bristol just for a pair of shoes. He nodded agreement and, as I rose to leave, I commented: "It's terrible to be deformed, isn't it?" The old man smiled as he walked across to open the door. "I find one gets use to it after a while," he said. It was only then that I noticed the large hump on his back.