Show FORTY CENT SHOES A Tale of an Innocent Sailor and a Frisky Frisco Shopman There is brisk competition among the little stores on Pacific street near the water front where the seamen buy their oilskin coats sea boots and other necessary neces-sary articles of marine apparel The merchants bait hooks to catch customers All they want is to have a man stop to I look at their wares they trust to their own noble persuasive powers for tile rest Long sticks strung about with shoes depend de-pend from the awnings On one of these sticks clustered all over with nice looking look-ing stout gaiters hung this placard yesterday yes-terday Forty cents a pair The proprietor pro-prietor lay low in the dusky interior of his shop A seaman halted and looked at the placard with surprise atthe forty cent shoes worth 250 anywhere else He was in the act of reaching to feel the leather when Mr Jacobs darted into the light rubbing his hands and smiling and asking in seductive accents what he I could show the gentleman in the way of i the finest and cheapest clothing on the I whole front Why them there shoes o yourn began the sailor but Mr Jacobs wanted to talk about anything but shoes The contest lasted ten minutes Still the mariner though often decoyed away from leather always returned to it See here uncle he said at last preparing pre-paring to move off Ill take a pair o them forty cent shoes if youll warrant themForty cent shoes Who ever heard of such a thing as fortycent shoes The tarry finger pointed at the largo placard What a strange mistake Mr Jacobs was amused He ran his fingers along the string supporting the placard and showed that it led to a rusty pair of carpet car-pet slippers which the shoes had hidden from view The sailor was mad but fifteen minutes min-utes later ho had a large bundle under his arm and Mr Jacobs shook hands affably as he handed him his change San Francisco Examiner |