I bought them at Exeter last summer, and they withstood all the malice of Devonshire paviours in a most inconceivable style. The leather was of a most editorial consistency, and the sole resembled a quarto. It was in them that I revisited the desolate habitation of my infancy; it was their heavy clanging sound which echoed through those deserted apartments. It was in them, too, that I tottered upon the perilous summit of the Ness; and it was in them that I got wet to the knees in the disagreeable tempest which waited upon the Dawlish regatta. How many pleasant moments, how many dear friends, do they recall to my recollection! It was with their ponderous solidity that I astonished the weak nerves of one, and trod upon the weak toes of another. Every inch of them, old and _emeriti_ as they are, is pregnant with some delightful, some amiable sensation. It was in them that I excogitated the first number of the _Etonian_--they shall live to look upon the last! I cannot say they were ever very elegant in shape or texture. Like the genius of my friend Swinburne, they possessed more intrinsic strength than outward polish. They served me well, however, and travelled with me to town. I happened to put them on one wet morning in April. Whatever form or fashion they formerly boasted was altogether extinct; they were as shapeless as an unlicked cub, and as dusky as a cloud on a November morning. I beheld their fallen appearance with some dismay. “I shall be stared at,” I said; “I had better take them off!” But I thought of their former services, and resolved to keep them on. They had brought their plated heels from the country, and they made a confounded noise upon the pavement as I walked along. Ding, dong, they went at every step, as if I carried a belfry swung at my toes. “This is a disagreeable sort of accompaniment,” I said. “I had better dismiss the musicians.” Just at that moment a young baronet passed me, attended by a fine dog. The dog was in high spirits, and made rather too much noise for the contemplative mood of his master. “Silence, Cæsar! Be quiet, Cæsar!” No, it was all in vain, and Cæsar was kicked into the gutter. “That was cruel!” I said, “to dismiss an old servant, because he was a note too loud! I think I will keep my boots!”