In a very short time, upon the principal street in Kipp, in sight of Smith's, out swung a large _flag_, with the name of “Jones, importer, manufacturer, and patent leather boot and shoe _artiste_.” Smith stared, the flag fluttered, and Jones chuckled. Customers began to patronise Jones, and the flag seemed saucily to triumph, as it floated upon the breeze blowing towards Smith's door. Smith was a man of energy, though, and out came his new “patent gaiter boot;” the tide turned and Smith was again in the ascendant. Now began a leather war--Jones up and Smith down, Smith up again and Jones down, as each rival, alternately, brought out something new. At length, one bright morning, the inhabitants of Kipp, who had taken sides in the contest, were astounded by the appearance of the front of Smith's store--it was one entire sign, from the pavement to the roof. Jones looked blue, the flag fluttered like a tattered rag. Smith rose in importance--his friends felt proud of him--it was a Kipp triumph over foreign capital--the Jones party wavered!--not so Jones; his great mind had conceived a stupendous overthrow for Smith, and ere admiration for his rival had settled into sure success, it was diverted to himself. An immense flag, _of stone_, with his name in large letters, was scientifically planted right in the centre of Jones' pavement. The town now became feverish with excitement, and it was rumored that the town council intended to consider the matter--the “signs of the times” grew alarming. Glorious Smith!--Smith for ever!--unyielding to the last! In this emergency, when the horizon seem'd heavy with defeat, when a vast stone seemed to press his fortunes into the earth, Smith arose, Phonix like, “from a boot,” and gave assurance to the world that he was no common leather. Rapid as the thought which conceived the idea, he had a vast boot constructed, placed upon a post in front of his door, and with a sample of his manufacture in each hand, he mounted into it, to exhibit to the passers by not only a spectacle of indomitable energy, but un-_flag_ging perseverance. “What do you think of Smith now?” said the adherents of the “big boot,”--“bravo, Smith!” shouted the Kippites. Here was a climax to which ingenuity could discover no parallel, it was indeed the _ne plus ultra_. Jones put his hands behind his coat-tails, and looked up street at the big boot and its tenant, then at the stone flag beneath his feet, and his countenance settled into a calm and desperate determination. “I'll do it!” exclaimed he. The expression was caught up by his friends, wafted through the town, and whispered in each dwelling, until the excitement and expectation grew painful. Everybody was aching to see what Jones _would do_.