My once "lovely companions" were faded, but not gone. It was my fortune to meet them again soon afterwards, still further eastward. The recognition, as before, was unavoidable. They were _the_ boots, but "translated" out of themselves; another pair, yet the same. The heels were handsomely cobbled up with clinking iron tips, and a worsted tassel of larger dimensions had been supplied to match the remaining silk one. The boots thus regenerated rendered a rather equivocal symmetry to the legs of an attorney's clerk, whose life was spent in endless errands with copies of writs to serve, and in figuring at "free-and-easys" and spouting-clubs. They were well able to bear him on his daily and nightly rounds, for the new soles were thicker than any client's head in Christendom. This change led me naturally enough into some profound speculations upon "wear and tear," and much philosophical musing on the absorption and disappearance of soles and heels after a given quantity of perambulation. But while I was wondering into what substances and what shapes the old leather might be passing, and also how much of my own original self (for we all become other people in time) might yet be remaining unto me, I lost sight for ever of the lawyer's clerk, but not of my boots--for I suspect he effected some legal transfer of them to a client who was soon as legally transferred to the prison in Whitecross-street; since, passing that debtors' paradise soon after, I saw the identical boots (the once pale blue lining was now of _no_ colour) carried out by an aged dame, who immediately bent her steps, like one well acquainted with the way, towards "mine uncle's" in the neighbourhood. Hessians that can escape from a prison may work their way out of a pawnbroker's custody; and my Hessians had something of the quality of the renowned slippers of Bagdad,--go where they might, they were sure to meet the eye of their original owner. The next time I saw the boots, they were on the foot-board of a hackney-coach; yea, on the very feet of the Jarvey. But what a falling-off! translation was no longer the word. They had suffered what the poet calls a sea-change. The tops were cut round; the beautiful curve, the tassels, all had vanished. One boot had a patch on one side only; the other, on both. I thought of the exclamation of Edmund Burke,--"The glory of Europe is extinguished for ever!" Instinct told me they were _the_ boots; but-- "The very Hoby who them made, Beholding them so sore decay'd, He had not known his work." I hired the coach, and rode behind my own boots: the speculative fit again seized me. I recollected how "All that's bright must fade,"