The master-cook stood aghast at the horrible clatter occasioned by this comical catastrophe, and the ruin which accompanied it; but he was soon sufficiently recovered from his astonishment to gather the gentleman up again; and then, having had him well wiped down, he gave him in charge to a constable. The constable carried him before the magistrate, as a matter of course, and the master-cook now sought compensation in damages for the injury done to his plates, dishes, and victuals, and the waiter sought a reparation for the bodily injury he had sustained. The magistrate directed the gentleman to find bail to answer the complaint of the waiter at the Sessions; but he refused to make any order with respect to the damages upon the eatables; inasmuch as the waiter appeared to be as deeply implicated in that part of the business as the gentleman. THE GENTLEMAN AND HIS BOOTS. One morning in the dog-days, a gentleman presented himself before the magistrate to claim redress against a bootmaker, who, he said, had done him irreparable injury, and had wantonly inflicted upon him unheard-of torments--torments fit only for the howling inhabitants of _Tartarus_!--This unfortunate gentleman had walked or rather _waddled_ into the office slip-shod, in green morocco slippers: whilst he spoke, he stood first upon one foot, and then upon the other; and there was such a manifestation of intense suffering in his voice, his countenance and his gesture, that every person present pitied him. He said he had been miserable enough to have a dispute with his boot-maker, about a pair of boots which he had sent the rascal to repair; and in that dispute he expressed himself more warmly, perhaps, than the occasion warranted; but he little thought he was to suffer for it in the way he had done. Some days after the dispute above-mentioned, the boot-maker sent the boots home; and, on the next morning, he put them on, and walked out with the intention of calling upon several friends, with whom he had particular appointments. But he had not walked more than two or three hundred yards, when his feet began to feel "cursedly uncomfortable;" and the more he walked and tried not to notice them, the more uncomfortable they became. What the plague could be the matter with the boots, he could not imagine! They were quite large enough, and the leather seemed soft and pliable; and yet, had they been made of iron, and two sizes too small for him, he could not have felt more uncomfortable. Nevertheless--though with less and less of comfort, he still walked, and walked, until his walk became a downright ridiculous hobble; and at last, without having called upon a single friend, he returned home in as lamentable a condition as Peter Pindar's pea-perplexed Pilgrim-- "His eyes in tears, his cheeks and brows in sweat, Deep sympathizing with his groaning feet!"