A shoemaker attending a public ball, where he happened to be the handsomest and best-dressed gentleman, the mushroom gentry thought to play a trick on him. While engaged in a dance, a stocking manufacturer begged to be measured for a pair of boots, to be ready by five o’clock next morning. The shoemaker, observing his drift, and the approbation of a considerable part of the company, immediately desired him to hold it on the floor, and with one knee on it measured the foot: then saying, “You may depend upon it, the boots will be ready according to your order;” he ordered half a dozen pairs of silk stockings, to be ready at the same hour, and proceeded with the dance. Having stayed till two o’clock in the morning, he waked some of his workmen, and had the boots finished by five o’clock; then sending and obliging the stocking manufacturer to rise, and try on his boots, which exactly fitted, he ordered instant payment of five guineas for them, and threatened prosecution, as the stockings were not ready according to promise. THE END. FOOTNOTES: [1] The _feather_ is the edge of the insole. [2] Properly. [3] Merchants’ Magazine. End of Project Gutenberg's The Book of the Feet, by Joseph Sparkes Hall