“’Pears to me you have rather high heels to your boots,” said the grave man of utility, looking sharply down through his spectacles; “don’t you know that it’s both wasting leather and endangering your limbs, to wear such high heels? I have thought, at my first leisure, to write a little pamphlet against that very abuse. But pray, what are you doing now? Do your boots pinch you, my friend, that you lift one foot from the floor that way?” At this moment, Israel having seated himself, was just putting his right foot across his left knee. “How foolish,” continued the wise man, “for a rational creature to wear tight boots. Had nature intended rational creatures should do so, she would have made the foot of solid bone, or perhaps of solid iron, instead of bone, muscle, and flesh,—But,—I see. Hold!” And springing to his own slippered feet, the venerable sage hurried to the door and shot-to the bolt. Then drawing the curtain carefully across the window looking out across the court to various windows on the opposite side, bade Israel proceed with his operations. “I was mistaken this time,” added the Doctor, smiling, as Israel produced his documents from their curious recesses—“your high heels, instead of being idle vanities, seem to be full of meaning.” “Pretty full, Doctor,” said Israel, now handing over the papers. “I had a narrow escape with them just now.” “How? How’s that?” said the sage, fumbling the papers eagerly. “Why, crossing the stone bridge there over the _Seen_”— “_Seine_”—interrupted the Doctor, giving the French pronunciation.—“Always get a new word right in the first place, my friend, and you will never get it wrong afterwards.” “Well, I was crossing the bridge there, and who should hail me, but a suspicious-looking man, who, under pretence of seeking to polish my boots, wanted slyly to unscrew their heels, and so steal all these precious papers I’ve brought you.” “My good friend,” said the man of gravity, glancing scrutinizingly upon his guest, “have you not in your time, undergone what they call hard times? Been set upon, and persecuted, and very illy entreated by some of your fellow-creatures?” “That I have, Doctor; yes, indeed.” “I thought so. Sad usage has made you sadly suspicious, my honest friend. An indiscriminate distrust of human nature is the worst consequence of a miserable condition, whether brought about by innocence or guilt. And though want of suspicion more than want of sense, sometimes leads a man into harm, yet too much suspicion is as bad as too little sense. The man you met, my friend, most probably had no artful intention; he knew just nothing about you or your heels; he simply wanted to earn two sous by brushing your boots. Those blacking-men regularly station themselves on the bridge.” “How sorry I am then that I knocked over his box, and then ran away. But he didn’t catch me.”