, and bending and winding her lithe body prettily
enough to do it. Imagine (if not pressed for time) a bantam, with a
guineahen stepping obsequious at its stately heel.

This pageant made straight for the shoemaker's shop. Denys louted low;
the worshipful lady nodded graciously, but rapidly, having business
on hand, or rather on foot; for in a moment she poked the point of her
little shoe into the sleeper, and worked it round in him like a gimlet,
till with a long snarl he woke. The incarnate shutter rising and
grumbling vaguely, the lady swept in and deigned him no further notice.
He retreated to his neighbour's shop, the tailor's, and sitting on the
step, protected it from the impertinence of morning calls. Neighbours
should be neighbourly.

Denys and Gerard followed the dignity into the shop, where sat the
apprentice at dinner; the maid stood outside with her insteps crossed,
leaning against the wall, and tapping it with her nails.

"Those, yonder," said the dignity briefly, pointing with an imperious
little white hand to some yellow shoes gilded at the toe. While the
apprentice stood stock still neutralized by his dinner and his duty,
Denys sprang at the shoes, and brought them to her; she smiled, and
calmly seating herself, protruded her foot, shod, but hoseless, and
scented. Down went Denys on his knees, and drew off her shoe, and tried
the new ones on the white skin devoutly. Finding she had a willing
victim, she abused the opportunity, tried first one pair, then another,
then the first again, and so on, balancing and hesitating for about half
an hour, to Gerard's disgust, and Denys's weak delight. At last she was
fitted, and handed two pair of yellow and one pair of red shoes out to
her servant. Then was heard a sigh. It burst from the owner of the shop:
he had risen from slumber, and was now hovering about, like a partridge
near her brood in danger.

"There go all my coloured shoes," said he, as they disappeared in the
girl's apron.

The lady departed: Gerard fitted himself with a stout pair, asked the
price, paid it without a word, and gave his old ones to a beggar in the
street, who blessed him in the marketplace, and threw them furiously
down a well in the suburbs. The comrades left the shop, and in it two
melancholy men, that looked, and even talked, as if they had been robbed
wholesale.

"My shoon are sore worn," said Denys, grinding his teeth; "but I'll go
barefoot till I reach France, ere I'll lea