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. Or try a little
flour, and see if it won't feel more at home. I've hea'd of a shoe that
give that sensation of looseness by not goin' on at all."

The girls exulted joyfully together at the defeat of their companion, but
the shoeman kept a grave face, while he searched out other sorts of shoes
and slippers, and offered them, or responded to some definite demand with
something as near like as he could hope to make serve. The tumult of talk
and laughter grew till the chef put his head out of the kitchen door, and