[27] "He speaks like a lady for all the world, and never swears, as Mr. Flash does, but wears nice white gloves, and tells me what ribands become my complexion, where to stick my patches, who is the best milliner, where they sell the best tea, and which is the best wash for the face and the best paste for the hands; he is always playing with my fan, and showing his teeth; and when ever I speak, he pats me--so--and cries, 'The devil take me, Miss Biddy, but you'll be my perdition--ha, ha, ha!'" (David Garrick, "Miss in Her Teens," 1747). X BOOTS, SHOES, AND OTHER COVERINGS FOR THE FEET "'Who is there in the house?' said Sam, in whose mind the inmates were always represented by that particular article of their costume which came under his immediate superintendence. 'There's a wooden leg in number six; there's a pair of Hessians in thirteen; there's two pair of halves in the commercial; there's these here painted tops in the snuggery inside the bar; and five more tops in the coffee-room.' "'Nothing more?' said the little man. "'Stop a bit,' replied Sam, suddenly recollecting himself. 'Yes; there's a pair of Wellingtons a good deal worn, and a pair o' lady's shoes in number five.' "'What sort of shoes?' hastily inquired Wardle, who, together with Mr. Pickwick, had been lost in bewilderment at the singular catalogue of visitors. "'Country make,' replied Sam. "'Any maker's name?' "'Brown.' "'Where of?' "'Muggleton.' "'It is them!' exclaimed Wardle. 'By Heaven, we've found them.'" _Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club._ [Illustration: FLEMISH (EIGHTEENTH CENTURY).] [Illustration: FRENCH (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY).] X BOOTS, SHOES, AND OTHER COVERINGS FOR THE FEET The good St. Crispin, of blessed memory, cobbling shoes for the poor by the light of his candle and filling up the interval with preaching, is a figure which all shoemakers regard with reverence. How did Crispin become the tutelary saint of shoemakers? Well, it was in this wise. Crispin, travelling with his brother Crispinian, in company with St. Denis, to Soissons in France to propagate the Christian faith, towards the close of the third century, in order that he might not be a burden to others for his maintenance, exercised at night the trade of shoemaker, preaching the Gospel by day. The shoes were sold at a low price to the poor, an angel (so the legend recounts) miraculously furnishing the leather. According to another version of the legend, the saint _stole_ the leather, so as to enable him to benefit the poor. Crispin's efforts, like those of so many other benefactors of their kind, were poorly rewarded. He was ordered to be beheaded, and suffered martyrdom in 287 A.D., not, however, for his shoemaking, or for his thefts, but on account of his religious tenets. Some accounts state that he and his brother were flung into a cauldron of molten lead.