"Oh, pap! won't you get me a pair of red moccasins while you are gone, please?" And coming over and laying his hand on his father's shoulder, he repeated his request--all in the softest, winningest way you can well imagine. For, whenever he had an object near at heart, and knew he could gain it by a little palaver, Sprigg could appear as soft and winning as any young tom-cat you ever saw. "But, Sprigg, why not the boots, which I have been promising you for a year or more? Black boots, with fair tops and brass heel-taps, that will make a gentleman of you as soon as you put them on." "But I would not care for the boots half so much; and, if you will just only bring me the moccasins I won't say one word about anything else you have been promising me. I won't even ask you to get me the fur hat, nor the red waistcoat, nor the little hunting knife, nor the little tomahawk--nothing but the red moccasins." The artful young rogue made this spreading display of self-denial merely to jog his father's memory, knowing perfectly well that he was running no risk of being taken at his word, and that by his offer of release he should be all the more certain of receiving what had been promised him. "Then, red moccasins shall you have, my boy!" cried the fond father, giving his son a chum-like slap on the back. "Let me but find them in the Old Dominion, and the red moccasins shall you have--yes, and the boots to boot." Of course, it never once entered Jervis Whitney's mind that so fantastic a thing as a pair of red moccasins was to be found in the Old Dominion, or anywhere else outside of a monkey show, though he might search the world, with a will-o'-the-wisp, from Big Bone Lick to the Land of Nod. So, in saying, "let me but find them, and you shall have them," he thought he was hazarding his word no more than were he to say: "Let the man in the moon but give me the moon, and the moon, my boy, is yours."