Page:Tale of Paraguay - Southey.djvu/160

154 end of the seams, that they may not give way for being dry. Tremendous vanity, that one man should allow the mouth of another to be applied to his feet that he may have them trimly set out! The shoemaker unfolds the heel, turns round with the shoeing skin in his hand, and begins to fit the second part of the shoe upon the foot. He desires the gallant to put the end of the foot down, and the gallant does as he is desired. He draws the shoe towards him with such force that the person who is thus being shoed is compressed in an unseemly manner between the shoemaker's body and the back of the chair. Presently he tells him to put his heel down, and the man is as obedient as a slave. He orders him then to stamp upon the ground, and the man stamps as he is ordered. The gallant then seats himself again; the cruel operator draws the shoeing skin from the instep, and in its place drives in a stick which they call costa. He then turns upon it the punch, which makes the holes in the leather, through which the ribbons are to pass; he again twists round his hand the strip of hare-skin which hangs from the heel, and pulls it as if he were ringing a bell, and leaves upon the upper part of the top a pain and marks as if he had punched the holes in it. He bores the ears,