t the rear and sides, and its buggy-hood over the seat where the
shoeman lounged lazily holding the reins, the girls flocked down the
stairs, and out upon the piazza where the shoe man had handily ranged his
vehicle.

They began to ask him if he had not this thing and that, but he said with
firmness, "Nothin' but shoes, guls. I did carry a gen'l line, one while,
of what you may call ankle-wea', such as spats, and stockin's, and
gaitas, but I nova did like to speak of such things befoa ladies, and now
I stick ex-elusively to shoes. You know that well enough, guls; what's
the use?"

He kept a sober face amidst the giggling that his words aroused,--and let
his voice sink into a final note of injury.

"Well, if you don't want any shoes, to-day, I guess I must be goin'." He
made a feint of jerking his horse's reins, but forebore at the entreaties
that went up from the group of girls.

"Yes, we do!" "Let's see them!" "Oh, don't go!" they chorused in an
equally histrionic alarm, and the shoeman got down from his perch to show
his wares.

"Now, the'a, ladies," he said, pulling out one of the drawers, and
dangling a pair of shoes from it by the string that joined their heels,
"the'e's a shoe that looks as good as any Sat'd'y-night shoe you eva see.
Looks as han'some as if it had a pasteboa'd sole and was split stock all
through, like the kind you buy for a dollar at the store, and kick out in
the fust walk you take with your fella--'r some other gul's fella, I
don't ca'e which. And yet that's an honest shoe, made of the best of
material all the way through, and in the best manna. Just look at that
shoe, ladies; ex-amine it; sha'n't cost you a cent, and I'll pay for youa
lost time myself, if any complaint is made." He began to toss pairs of
the shoes into the crowd of girls, who caught them from each other before
they fell, with hysterical laughter, and ran away with them in-doors to
try them on. "This is a shoe that I'm intaducin'," the shoeman went on,
"and every pair is warranted--warranted numba two; don't make any otha
size, because we want to cata to a strictly numba two custom. If any lady
doos feel 'em a little mite too snug, I'm sorry for her, but I can't do
anything to help her in this shoe."

"Too snug!" came a gay voice from in-doors. "Why my foot feels puffectly
lost in this one."

"All right," the shoeman shouted back. "Call it a numba one shoe and then
see if you can't find that lost foot in it, some'eres.