Luckily for Charley’s comfort, he now discovered that the supposed blunderbuss was Peter Faber’s leg, and that the little man had it leveled like a gun, in the vain attempt to pull a Wellington boot over that which already encased his foot. He sighed and tugged, and sighed and tugged again. The effort was bootless. He could not, to use his own words, make it “shute.” The first pair, which already occupied the premises, would not be prevailed upon to admit of interlopers, and Peter’s pulling and hauling were in vain. It was the banging of Peter’s back against the front door of Mrs. Sniggs’s mansion that had so alarmed the family; and now as he talked, he hopped across the pavement, still tugging at the boot, and took his place upon the fire-plug. “Pshaw!—baint it hot!” said Peter. “Drat these boots! they’ve been eating green presimmings. I guess their mouths are all drawed up, just as if they wanted to whistle ‘Hail Kerlumby.’ They did fit like nothing when I tried ’em on this morning; but now I might as well pull at the door-handle and try to poke my foot through the key-hole. My feet couldn’t have growed so much in a single night, or else my stockings would have been tore; and I’m sure these are my own legs and nobody else’s, because they are as short as ever and as bandy. Besides, I know it’s me by the patches on my knees. That’s the way I always tell.” “Are you quite sure,” inquired the watch, “that you didn’t get swopped as you came up the street? You’ve got boot, somehow or other. But come, now,” added he authoritatively, and putting on the dignity that belongs to his station, “quit being redickalis, and tell us what’s the meaning of sich goin’s on in a white man, who ought to be a credit to his fetching up. If you’re a gentleman’s son, always be genteel, and never cut up shindies or indulge in didoes. What are you doing with them ’are boots? That’s the question, Mr. Speaker.” “Doing with my boots? What could I do without my boots, watchy?” added Peter, in tones of the deepest solemnity, as he laid his boots upon his lap and smoothed them down with every token of affection. “Watchy, though you are a watchy, you’ve got a heart with the sensibilities in it—nothing of the brickbat about you, is there, watchy? If you are ugly to look at, it’s not your fault, and it’s not your fault that you’re a watchy. I can see with half an eye that you’re a man with feelings; and you know as well as I do that we must have something to love in this world—you love your rattle—I love my boots—better nor they love me, I’m afraid,” and Peter grew plaintive.