ice; and at sight of his neat wagon, with its
drawers at 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