Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 4.pdf/415

, I and my friend, before he desisted, reckoned up three principal classes.

(i) There are the various sorts of chafe. Worst of the chafes is certainly the heel chafe, when something goes wrong with the upright support at the heel. This, as a boy, I have had to endure for days together; because there were no other boots for me. Then there is the chafe that comes when that inner lining of the boot rucks up—very like the chafe it is that poor people are always getting from over-darned and hastily-darned socks. And then there is the chafe that comes from ready-made boots one has got a trifle too large or long, in order to avoid the pinch and corns. After a little while, there comes a transverse crease across the loose-fitting forepart; and, when the boot stiffens from wet or any cause, it chafes across the base of the toes. They have you all ways. And I have a very lively recollection too of the chafe of the knots one made to mend broken laces—one cannot be always buying new laces, and the knots used to work inward. And then the chafe of the crumpled tongue. . ..

(ii) Then there are the miseries that come from the wear of the sole. There is the ricked ankle because the heel has gone over, and the sense of insecurity; and there is the miserable sense of not looking well from behind that many people must feel. It is almost always painful to me to walk behind girls who work out, and go to and fro, consuming much footwear, for this very reason, that their heels seem always to wear askew. Girls ought always to be so beautiful, most girls could be so beautiful, that to