Last winter he advertised for sealed proposals to erect a pair of shoes
for him, and when the bids were opened it was found that a local architect
in leather had secured the contract, and after mortgaging his house to a
Milwaukee tannery, and borrowing some money on his diamonds of his
"uncle," John Comstock, who keeps a pawnbrokery there, he broke ground for
the shoes.
Owing to the snow blockade and the freshets, and the trouble to get hands
who would work on the dome, there were several delays, and Judge Evans was
at one time inclined to cancel the contract, and put some strings in box
cars and wear them in place of shoes, but sympathy for the contractor, who
had his little awl invested in the material and labor, induced him to put
up with the delay.
On Saturday the shoes were completed, all except laying the floor and
putting on a couple of bay windows for corns and conservatories for
bunions, and the judge concluded to wear them on Sunday. He put them on,
but got the right one on the left foot, and the left one on the right
foot. As he walked down town the right foot was continually getting on the
left side, and he stumbled over himself, and he felt pains in his feet.
The judge was frightened in a minute. He is afraid of paralysis, all the
boys know it, and when he told a wicked Republican named Spencer how his
feet felt, that degraded man told the judge that it was one of the surest
symptoms of paralysis in the world, and advised him to hunt a doctor.
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