Old "LEATHERBRAINS" in SATAN'S livery, producing a hammer from a
carpet-bag (he was a carpet-bagger), proceeded to shape my feet, and
fill them with shoe-pegs.
My nap was ruffled, and not to be continued under those circumstances,
so I wisely concluded it.
"They're on!" says the bootmaker.
And a tight on it was, excruciatingly so.
I suspected at the time that I had been put to sleep by chloroform, but
I afterward remembered that a feeble youth was reading aloud from the
Special Cable Dispatches of the _Tribune._
My feelings centred in those boots, tears filled my eyes, and I was dumb
with emotion, but quickly reviving, I slaked the cordwainer with a flood
of rabid eloquence.
The cowering wretch suggested that they would stretch. He lied, the
villain, he lied, they shrank.
However, "in verdure clad," I was persuaded into wearing them, and
stiffly sidled off, a badgered biped, my head swinging round the circle,
and my voice hanging on the verge of profanity all the way.
As fit boots they were a most successful failure. I gave them to the
office boy; but the crutches I afterward bought him cost me twenty-seven
dollars.
Henceforth I shall take my cue from JOHN CHINAMAN, and encase my
understanding in wood. Yours calmly,