rom the wagon. "Well, now, if I stood as nea' to
him as you do, I believe I sh'd hit him."

"Why, man, I can't dispute him!" said the chef, and as if he had now at
last scored a point, he threw back his head and laughed. When he brought
down his head again, it was to perceive the approach of Clementina.
"Hello," he said for her to hear, "he'e comes the Boss. Well, I guess
I must be goin'," he added, in mock anxiety. "I'm a goin', Boss, I'm a
goin'."

Clementina ignored him. "Mr. Atwell wants to see you a moment, Mr.
Fane," she said to the clerk.

"All right, Miss Claxon," Fane answered, with the sorrowful respect
which he always showed Clementina, now, "I'll be right there." But he
waited a moment, either in expression of his personal independence, or
from curiosity to know what the shoeman was going to say of the bronze
slippers.

Clementina felt the fascination, too; she thought the slippers were
beautiful, and her foot thrilled with a mysterious prescience of its
fitness for them.

"Now, the'e, ladies, or as I may say guls, if you'll excuse it in one
that's moa like a fatha to you than anything else, in his feelings"--the
girls tittered, and some one shouted derisively--"It's true!"--"now
there is a shoe, or call it a slippa, that I've rutha hesitated about
showin' to you, because I know that you're all rutha serious-minded,
I don't ca'e how young ye be, or how good-lookin' ye be; and I don't
presume the'e's one among you that's eve' head o' dancin'." In the
mirthful hooting and mocking that followed, the shoeman hedged gravely
from the extreme position he had taken. "What? Well, maybe you have
among some the summa folks, but we all know what summa folks ah', and I
don't expect you to patte'n by them. But what I will say is that if
any young lady within the sound of my voice,"--he looked round for
the applause which did not fail him in his parody of the pulpit
style--"should get an invitation to a dance next winta, and should feel
it a wo'k of a charity to the young man to go, she'll be sorry--on his
account, rememba--that she ha'n't got this pair o' slippas.

"The'a! They're a numba two, and they'll fit any lady here, I don't ca'e
how small a foot she's got. Don't all speak at once, sistas! Ample time
allowed for meals. That's a custom-made shoe, and if it hadn't b'en too
small for the lady they was oddid foh, you couldn't-'a' got 'em for less
than seven dollas; but now I'm throwin' on 'em away for three."