How often--a hundred times at least, have I gone to the door and heard this inquiry--ten times in one day, for I kept count of it, and used enough "strong language" at each shutting--banging to of the door, to last a "first officer" through a gale of wind. "_Have you got any ole boots?_" The idea of jumping up from your beef steak and coffee, or morning paper--just as you had got into a deeply interesting bit of information on "breadstuff's," California, or the Queen's last baby, to open your door, and espy a grim-visaged and begrimed son of the Emerald Isle, just rearing his phiz above the pyramid of ancient and defiled leather, and meekly asking-- "_Have yez got any ole boots?_" These _collectors_ are of course prepared for any amount of explosive _gas_ you may shower down upon their uncombed crowns, as the cool and perfectly-at-home manner they descend your steps to mount those of your next-door neighbor plainly indicates. The "pedlers" and-- "_Have you got any ole boots?_" Drove my respected--middle-aged friend Mansfield--clear out of town! Mr. Mansfield was a _retired_ flour merchant; he was not rich, but well to do in the world. He had no children of his own, in lieu of which, however, he had become responsible for the "bringing up" of two orphans of a friend. One of these children was a boy, old enough to be _devilish_ and mightily inclined that way. The boy's name was Philip, the foster father he called Uncle Henry, and not long after arriving in town, and opening house at the South End, Mr. Mansfield--who was given to quiet musings, book and newspaper reading--found that he was likely to become a victim to the aforesaid hawkers, pedlers and old boot collectors. Uncle Henry stood it for a few months, with the firmness of an experienced philosopher, laying the flattering unction to his soul that, however harrowing-- "_Got any ole boots to-day?_" might be to him, for the present, he could grin and bear and finally get used to it, as other people did. But Uncle Henry possessed an irritable and excitable temperament, that not one man in ten thousand could boast of, and hence he grew--at length sour, then savage, and, finally, quite meat-axish, towards every outsider who dared to ring his bell, and proffer wooden ware and tin fixins, for rags and rubbers, or make the never-to-be-forgotten inquiry-- "_Have you got any ole boots to-day?_" Always at home, seated in his front parlor, and his frugal wife not permitting the expense of a servant, Uncle Henry, or Master Philip, were obliged to wait on the door. The old gentleman finally concluded that the pedlers and old boot collectors, more as a matter of daily amusement than profit or concern--gave him a call. And laboring under this impression, Uncle Henry determined to give the nuisances, as he called them, a reception commensurate with their impertinence and his worked up ire. "Now, Philly," said Uncle Henry, one morning after breakfast, "we'll fix these--