Old Stiffelkind roared louder. "A very nice leg, ma'am, and a very _sheap boot too_! Vat, you did not know I make his boots! Perhaps you did not know someting else too—p'rhaps you did not know" (and here the monster clapped his hand on the table, and made the punch-ladle tremble in the bowl), "p'rhaps you did not know as dat yong man, dat Stobbs, dat sneaking, baltry, squinting fellow, is as vicked as he is ogly. He bot a pair of boots from me and never paid for dem. Dat is noting, nobody never pays; but he bought a pair of boots, and called himself Lord Cornvallis. And I was fool enough to believe him vonce. But look you, niece Magdalen, I ave got five tousand pounds, if you marry him I vil not give you a benny; but look you, what I will gif you, I bromised you a bresent, and I vil give you DESE!" And the old monster produced THOSE VERY BOOTS which Swishtail had made him take back.... I _didn't_ marry Miss Crutty: I am not sorry for it though. She was a nasty, ugly, ill-tempered wretch, and I've always said so ever since. And all this arose from those infernal boots, and that unlucky paragraph in the county paper—I'll tell you how. In the first place, it was taken up as a quiz by one of the wicked, profligate, unprincipled organs of the London press, who chose to be very facetious about the "Marriage in High Life," and made all sorts of jokes about me and my dear Miss Crutty. Secondly, it was read in this London paper by my mortal enemy, Bunting, who had been introduced to old Stiffelkind's acquaintance by my adventure with him, and had his shoes made regularly by that foreign upstart. Thirdly, he happened to want a pair of shoes mended at this particular period, and as he was measured by the disgusting old High-Dutch Cobbler, he told him his old friend Stubbs was going to be married. "And to whom?" said old Stiffelkind, "to a voman wit gelt, I vil take my oath." "Yes," says Bunting, "a country girl—a Miss Magdalen Carotty or Crotty, a place called Sloffemsquiggle." "_Schloffemschwiegel!_" bursts out the dreadful bootmaker, "Mein Gott, mein Gott! das geht nicht—I tell you, sare, it is no go. Miss Crotty is my niece. I vill go down myself. I vill never let her marry dat goot-for-noting schwindler and teif." _Such_ was the language that the scoundrel ventured to use regarding me! [Illustration] 1839] JUNE [Illustration] HOW TO SCREW AN AUTHOR.—_Dr. Slop's Complaint._ 20. Mr. Serj^t. Talfourd withdrew his Copyright Bill, 1838. [Sidenote: Words are Wind, [Illustration] all know it. [Illustration: _Driving a Bargain!_] Never think to please a Poet.]