"Yes; boots, I mean. I wonder if these boots were any relation to that beef we ate yesterday. If they will only prove as tough, they'll last me a long time. I say, Cradle!" he called out, "where are you?" Cradle was our contraband, with a foot of extraordinary length, and heel to match. "What do you call him Cradle for?" I inquired. "What would _you_ call him? If he aint a cradle, what's he got rockers on for?" Cradle made his appearance, with a pair of perforated stockings. "It's no use," said Billy, looking at them. "Them stockings will do to put on a sore throat, but won't do for feet. It is humiliating for a man like me to be without stockings. A man may be bald-headed, and it's genteel; but to be barefooted, it's ruination. The legs are good, too," he added, thoughtfully, "but the feet are gone. There is something about the heels of stockings and the elbows of stove-pipes, in this world, that is all wrong, Jimmy." A supply of stockings had come that day, and were just being given out. A pair of very large ones fell to Billy's lot. Billy held them up before him. "Jimmy," said he, "these are pretty bags to give a little fellow like me. Them stockings was knit for the President, or a young gorilla, certain!" and he was about to bestow them upon Cradle, when a soldier, in the opposite predicament, made an exchange. "Them stockings made me think of the prisoner I scared so the other day," said Billy. "How's that?" said I. "He saw a big pair of red leggings, with feet, hanging up before our tent. He never said a word, till he saw the leggings, and then he asked me what they were for. 'Them!' said I, 'them's General Banks's stockings.' He looked scared. 'He's a big man, is General Banks,' said I, 'but then he ought to be, the way he lives.' 'How?' said he. 'Why,' said I, 'his regular diet is bricks buttered with mortar.'" The next day Billy got a present of a pair of stockings from a lady; a nice, soft pair, with his initials, in red silk, upon them. He was very happy. "Jimmy," said he, "just look at 'em," and he smoothed them down with his hand--"marked with my initials, too; 'B,' for my Christian name, and 'W' for my heathen name. How kind! They came just in the right time, too; I've got such a sore heel." Orders came to "fall in." Billy was so overjoyed with his new stockings he didn't keep the line well. "Steady, there!" growled the sergeant; "keep your place, and don't be moving round like the Boston post-office!" We were soon put upon the double-quick. After a few minutes, Billy gave a groan. "What is it, Billy?" said I. "It's all up with 'em," said he. I didn't know what he meant, but his face showed something bad had happened. When we broke ranks and got to the tent, he looked the picture of despair--shoes in hand, and his heels shining through his stockings like two crockery door-knobs. "Them new stockings of yours is breech-loading, aint they, Billy?" said an unfeeling volunteer.