Red- Boots. 205

ings grew old together. Their master Robert was
a good little fellow, and the shoes were fond of
him, and went everywhere with him, and hear now
what they did for him.

Robert was playing in the yard before his
house one day, when a hand-organ man appeared.
He looked first at the child, and then at all the
windows in the house, but no one was in sight.

‘‘Has oo dot a monkey wif oo?” said Robert.

“No,” said the man, ‘but I have three at
home, and if you will come with me, I will show
them to you.” And Robert, quite forgetting that
his mamma had told him never, never to go away
with any stranger, followed the man.

“« Stop, stop,” said the boots, but the little boy,
not understanding the shoe-language only heard
“squeak, squeak-i-ty squeak.”

On and on they went, till poor Robert began
to cry, but the man seizing him by the hand, hur-
ried him on till they came to his home—such a
wretched home. He gave Robert a crust of bread,
and taking off his coat and hat and boots told him
to lie down, and go to sleep, and the poor child,