SHOEMAKER.
[Feels his foot.] No, my lord, they don’t hurt you there.
LORD FOPPINGTON.
I tell thee they pinch me execrably.
SHOEMAKER.
Why then, my lord, if those shoes pinch you, I’ll be damned.
LORD FOPPINGTON.
Why, will thou undertake to persuade me I cannot feel?
SHOEMAKER.
Your lordship may please to feel what you think fit, but that shoe does not hurt you—I think I understand my trade.
LORD FOPPINGTON.
Now, by all that’s good and powerful, thou art an incomprehensive coxcomb!—but thou makest good shoes, and so I’ll bear with thee.
SHOEMAKER.
My lord, I have worked for half the people of quality in this town these twenty years, and ’tis very hard I shouldn’t know when a shoe hurts, and when it don’t.
LORD FOPPINGTON.
Well, pr’ythee be gone about thy business.—[Exit SHOEMAKER.] Mr. Mendlegs, a word with you.—The calves of these stockings are thickened a little too much; they make my legs look like a porter’s.
MENDLEGS.
My lord, methinks they look mighty well.
LORD FOPPINGTON.
Ay, but you are not so good a judge of those things as I am—I have studied them all my life—therefore pray let the next be the thickness of a crown-piece less.