of corns and bunions. Yes, indeed! But I broke it up.

I sez, "Do you lay out and calculate to hobble round in that pair of
leather vises and toe-screws," sez I, "when you have got to be on foot
from mornin' till night, day after day? Why under the sun don't you wear
your good old leather shoes, and feel comfortable?"

And he said (true father of Tirzah Ann), "He wuz afraid it would make
talk."

[Illustration: "Leather vises and toe-screws."]

Sez I, "The idee of the World's Fair, with all it has got on its mind, a
noticin' or carin' whether you had on shoes or went barefoot! But if you
are afraid of talk," sez I, "I guess that it would make full as much
talk to see you a-goin' round a-groanin' and a-cryin' out loud. And that
is what them shoes would bring you to," sez I.

"Now," sez I, "you jest do them shoes right up and carry 'em back to the
store, and if you have got to have a new pair, git some that will be
more becomin' to a human creeter, let alone a class-leader, and a
perfessor, and a grandfather."

So at last I prevailed--he a-forebodin' to the very last that it would
make talk to see him in such shoes. But he got a pair that wuzn't more'n
one size too small for him, and I presumed to think they would stretch
some. And, anyway, I laid out to put his good, roomy old gaiters in my
own trunk, so he could have a paneky to fall back on, and to soothe.

As for myself, I took my old slips, that had been my faithful companions