began fitting visionary feet and legs into
a cellar-board full of boots and shoes, with a speed and accuracy that
would have astonished the most expert artist in leather, living. There
was one pair of boots in particular--a jolly, good-tempered,
hearty-looking pair of tops, that excited our warmest regard; and we had
got a fine, red-faced, jovial fellow of a market-gardener into them,
before we had made their acquaintance half a minute. They were just the
very thing for him. There was his huge fat legs bulging over the tops,
and fitting them too tight to admit of his tucking in the loops he had
pulled them on by; and his knee-cords with an interval of stocking; and
his blue apron tucked up round his waist; and his red neckerchief and
blue coat, and a white hat stuck on one side of his head; and there he
stood with a broad grin on his great red face, whistling away, as if any
other idea but that of being happy and comfortable had never entered his
brain.

This was the very man after our own heart; we knew all about him; we had
seen him coming up to Covent-garden in his green chaise-cart, with the
fat, tubby little horse, half a thousand times; and even while we cast an
affectionate look upon his boots, at that instant, the form of a
coquettish servant-maid suddenly sprung into a pair of Denmark satin
shoes that stood beside them, and we at once recognised the very girl who
accepted his offer of a ride, just on this side the Hammersmith
suspension-bridge, the very last Tuesday morning we rode into town from
Richmond.

A very smart female, in a showy bonnet, stepped into a pair of grey cloth
boots, with black fringe and binding, that were studiously pointing out
their toes on the other side of the top-boots, and seemed very anxious to
engage his attention, but we didn't observe that our friend the
market-gardener appeared at all captivated with these blandishments; for
beyond giving a knowing wink when they first began, as if to imply that
he quite understood their end and object, he took no further notice of
them. His indifference, however, was amply recompensed by the excessive
gallantry of a very old gentleman with a silver-headed stick, who
tottered into a pair of large list shoes, that were standing in one
corner of the board, and indulged in a variety of gestures expressive of
his admiration of the lady in the cloth boots, to the immeasurable
amusement of a young fellow we put into a pair of long-quartered pumps