Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/136

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130
MY BOOTS.

cities or the country, we made good use of our eyes; it was, however, bad weather, and wet there also as in Denmark. Our soles were taken ill of palsy, and in Munich were obliged to be taken off, and we had a new pair; but these were so well done, that they looked like native soles.

“ ‘Oh, that we were but across the Alps!’ sighed we; there the weather is mild and good.”

“We came to the other side of the Alps, but we found neither mild nor good weather. It rained and blew; and when we trod upon marble, it was so icy-cold, that it forced the cold perspiration out of our soles; wherever we trod we left behind a wet impression. In the evenings, however, it was very amusing when the shoe-boys at the hotels collected and numbered the boots and shoes; and we were set among all these foreign companions and heard them tell about all the cities where they had been. There was once a pair of beautiful red morocco boots, with black feet, I think it was in Bologna, that told us all about their ascending Vesuvius, where their feet were burned off with the subterranean