The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-03-02
A Chicago Idyl.


constituted as to be constant prey to
the belief that he can wear shoes sew
eral sizes too small for him, from
whence arise physical agony, vexation
of spirit and grievous violations of the
third commandment.
1t is rare that young man is as mod
est and bashful as is certain young
man now residing in Chicago. He is
an excellent youth, but it has been fire.
quently asserted by his female acquaint-
anceS that should he ever be placed in
circumstances where it would be his
duty to remark " boo'' to a goose, he
would fail to make that remark. His
present occupation is the study of chem
many times that the small stock of self
confidence which he may originally have
had has completely vanished. Never
theless, he had the strange audacity to
fall violently in love with beautiful
young lady, the daughter of grim and
prosaic Chicago pork person, and con-
tinued to prosecute his suit in spite of
the brutal want of respect shown to
him by the father, who would frequent
ly call down over the banisters to his
daughter, in whose society the bashful
young man was lingering: Jane! it's
eleven o'clock. Turn out that there
gas and come to bed this minute
Last Wednesday night there was
concert at the Chicago Opera-House, to
which the bashful lover escorted the
object of his affections. 1t was the
first time that he had ever visited a
public place in company with lady,
and he was naturally extremely nerv-
Gus. He dressed himself with the great
est care, and put on new pair of pat
ent-leather CATERS purchased expressly
for the occasion. OF course, the CATERS
were much too small for him, for, as
Sir Isaac Newton conclusively shows,
the size of lovers shoes varies inverse
ly as the force of his passion. 1t took
him long while to get into his CATERS,
but he accomplished the feat after ire
mendous efforts, and in due time found
himself seated in the parquet of the
opera-house, with his beautiful young
lady by his side.
ular which inflicted upon him absolute
ly fiendish tortures, and the latter in
creased in intensity as the moments
came and went. Before the first half
of the performance was ended he was
nearly wild with pain 1t was perfect
ly obvious to him that either he must
obtain immediate relief or become a
demonstrative idiot on the spot; and he
therefore availed himself of the screen
afforded by the lady's skirts to remove
the offending shoe and give liberty to
the captive foot. 1t was his intention
to put the CATER on again at the close
of the concert without attracting atten-
ton, and had it not been for an unfore-
seen accident his purpose might have
been carried into effect.
1t so happened that he occupied a
seat next to the aisle. Soon after he
had removed the shoe lady who sat
on the same row of seats rose up to
leave the house. AS she brushed by the
bashful young man his disengaged shoe
became entangled under her skirts and
was soon swept away. Halfway up the
aisle it escaped from confinement, and
became an object of intense interest to
several thoughtless young men, one of
whom finally seized it and tossed it, in a
playful Chicago fashion, into the lowest
gallery.
The full horror of his situation smote
the shoeless youth. His face became
first scarlet and then pale as he thought
of the spectacle he would present when
the time should come for him to limp
out of the theater, with one shoe off and
one shoe on, in little better plight than
was the allegorical Richard Doubt
mentioned in Bunyan's ''Pilgrim' S Prog
ress." There was no possible lie which
he could frame to account for the alb
sence of that shoe, and he knew that
his beloved companion would accuse
him either of intoXication, of idiocy, or
of righteousness which permits him
to buy only one shoe at a time. In his
great distress he even attempted to pos
sess himself of one of pair of india
rubber overshoes which man sitting
in front of him had deposited within
reach of his cane, but as he was in the
act of drawing the ovcrshoe to him with
the handle of his cane he was detected
and scowled at with such violence that
he was glad to abandon the effort and
to murmur an incoherent apology. All
this time he kept his unshod foot con-
cealed under the hem of his compan-
ions dress, but he well knew that the
hour was rapidly approaching when
concealment would be no longer posi-
BILE, and he even wished that he were
dead. The idea of raising a false
alarm of fire, and of imputing the loss
of his shoe to the panic which would in
evitably ensue, occurred to him; but his
betterfeelings prevailed, and he resigned
himself to his fate. A few days after
ward he remembered how he had wished
that his lady love was st. Louis girl,
in which case he would have told her
all, in the expectation that she would
nobly say: Never mind. Share one
of my shoes with me, for it is large
enough for us BOTH; but perhaps the
Chicago press is mistaken in its de-
scription of the shoes of the girls of ST.
Louis, in spite of the attention which it
has paid to the subject, and perhaps
the average st. Louis female shoe is not
of abnormal size.
The concert came to an end. With
the calmness of desperation the I'M
happy youth escorted his companion to
her carriage amid the sneers and
laughter of the heartless public. AS
1. La l. 81 10 a.. L.