en, precisely on the stroke
of seven, the electric lights flashed out, the curtains were withdrawn,
and the shop stood smiling like a coquette at her first ball.

Everything was new. The fittings glistened with varnish, mirrors and
brass rods reflected the light at every angle, and the building was
packed from roof to floor with boots. The shelves were loaded with
white cardboard boxes containing the better sort of boot. But there
was not room enough on the shelves, and boots and shoes hung from the
ceiling like bunches of fruit; they clung to brass rods like swarming
bees. The strong, peculiar odour of leather clogged the air. The
shopmen stood about, whispering to one another or changing the position
of a pair of boots as they waited for the customers.

A crowd had gathered round the window on the left, which was fitted out
like a workshop. On one side a clicker was cutting uppers from the
skin; beside him a girl sat at a machine stitching the uppers together
at racing speed. On the other side a man stood at a bench lasting the
uppers to the insoles, and then pegging for dear life; near him sat a
finisher, who shaved and blackened the rough edges, handing the
finished article to a boy, who gave it a coat of gloss and placed it in
the front of the window for inspection. A placard invited the public
to watch the process of making Jonah's Famous Silver Shoes. The people
crowded about as if it were a play, delighted with the novelty,
following the stages in the growth of a boot with the pleasure of a boy
examining the inside of a watch.

At eight o'clock another surprise was ready. A brass band began to
play popular airs on the balcony, hung about with Chinese lanterns, and
a row of electric bulbs flashed out, marking the outline of the
wonderful silver shoe, glittering and gigantic in the white light.

The crowd looked up, and made bets on the length of the shoe, and
recalled the time, barely five years ago, when the same man--Jonah the
hunchback--had astonished Botany Road with his flaring signs in red and
white. True, his shop was still on the Road, for Regent Street is but
the fag end of a long, dusty road where it saunters into town,
snobbishly conscious of larger buildings and higher rents. Since then
his progress had been marked by removals, and each step had carried him
nearer to the great city. He had outgrown his shops as a boy outgrows
his trousers.

It was reported that everything turned to g