D.H. Lawrence

[juliojuank2011]

Dear friends. I am reading "Sons and lovers" by Lawrence. It is an interesting and up to now curious story. But written at the begining of the twenty Century it contains some strange words. One of these is "cobbler". As everyone knows a cobbler is someone who repairs shoes but in the context of the paragraph that word is used as it was a toy. William one of the character says to his mother "Well I got a cobbler as 'ad licked seventeen...." and several lines below the author says: "This old cobbler had cobbled -hit and smashed- seventeen other cobblers on similar strings"
Could somebady help me. I searched on the internet; looked on my dictionaries and I've not find nathing.
Thanks.

[prendrelemick]

It's conkers. I don't know where you are from, so if you haven't heard of the game of conkers here goes;-

A conker is the nut of the Horse Chesnut tree, which is round and looks as if it is made of hard polished wood. Children, (and many adults) drill a hole through the middle of a promising looking conker and thread a piece of string through with a knot on the end so it dangles and swings.
Then the game. Player 1 holds up his conker by the string to be hit. Player 2 swings his conker to hit it. Then vica-versa. This carries on untill one conker is destroyed. Wiliam had a conker that had defeated (licked) 17 others.

[juliojuank2011]

Oh!!! Thanks a lot. I am from La Plata, Argentina. I've never heard before about the game. What is more curious I've found nothing on the internet; nor in dictionaries and so. The problem (now I know) is that I had just the Word cobbler. Your explanation is really useful and perfect. Sorry for my writting, I know, I usually make some mistakes. Thanks again. Julio.