"The deuce it is!" exclaimed the shoemaker, startled. "Dr. Normann told us it lay in the healthiest part of the State." "Well, then, it must be a long way up the Creek." "I don't know what you mean by crick," grunted the brewer; "the place is said to be fifteen miles from the Mississippi, and there are some houses upon it." "Very likely," said the farmer; "I was never up the country there. And when are you going?" "Now, directly." "Now? In August? Well then, I wish you joy of the fever," said the farmer, laughing, drank the glass of cider which he had called for, and went off up the street. The brewer meanwhile ordered some beer, growled something about nonsensical stuff, fever, fiddlestick, old women's tales, and so on, and then wandered off with his comrades higher up into the town. "Well," said the shoemaker, at last, stopping near a shoemaker's workshop--"if that isn't curious; I begin to think that all the shoemakers in Cincinnati are confectioners. Only look now at the gingerbread and sugarcandy in that window there, a whole lot of it; the few pairs of shoes only seem to be hung beside by way of ornament." "A pretty sort of ornament, indeed," grinned the tailor. "The shoemaker is right, though; honeycakes and leather must agree well together here; but perhaps it isn't a shoemaker's." "Not a shoemaker's!" bawled the other, peevishly. "I should think I ought to know a shoemaker when I see one. Don't you see him hammering away, yonder, between the honeycake and the pink child's-shoe." "Yes, sure enough," said the little man; "it must be the custom here, then; opposite yonder is another, and he has got a whole box of ready-made[6] shoes standing before his door." "Hallo! he must have been a hard-working fellow," exclaimed the shoemaker, in astonishment, on perceiving the number of shoes set up in a large box; "and upon my word all made with little wooden pegs, too--they don't appear to sew here at all." "Where shall we go to this evening?" asked the brewer. "I wish there was something to be seen here." "Another striped pig, perhaps?" suggested Schmidt. "Nonsense," growled the other. "But, I say, the Museum yonder, in that wide street where the red lantern is hanging, is said to be well worth seeing. What say you?--shall we go in? It only costs a quarter dollar." "That would be just one half of all that I am worth," said the tailor. "Well, I'll pay for you, tailor, if Schmidt will pay for the shoemaker." "Agreed," replied Schmidt. "I'm willing to stand Sam; only I should like to be shaved first, for my beard feels very prickly--but I have not seen a sign of a bason[7] anywhere, although I've been constantly looking for one." "There are some Germans; perhaps they can tell us where a barber is to be found." "Walk down here till you come to the first red-and-white painted pole, that's a barber's shop." "What! a little pole with a gilt knob at the top?" asked Schmidt. "Yes, there are five or six of them in this street."