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SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN WRITERS

Text 9
SHOES AND SHIPS
After “Cabbages and Kings"
by O. Henry
I
SHOES
John Atwood plunged into his work. He tried to forget Rosine.
With a bottle between them, he and Billy Keough usually sat on
the porch of the little consulate at night and sang songs.
One day Johnny's servant brought the mail and threw it on the
table. From his hammock Johnny took the letters. Usually different
kind of information was wanted from him. Citizens in various parts of
the United States who probably regarded the consul at Coralio as an
encyclopedia wanted to know all about raising fruit, and how to make
fortune without work. They asked questions about the climate,
products, possibilities, laws, business chances, and statistics of the
country in which the consul had the honour of representing his own
government.
On that day one letter was from his own town — Dalesburg.
The postmaster wrote that a citizen of the town wanted some facts
and advice from Johnny. That man wanted to come to Coralio and
open a shoe store...
"Shoe store!" exclaimed the consul, laughing. "What'll they ask
about next, I wonder? Overcoat factory, maybe. Say, Billy — of our
3,000 citizens, how many do you suppose ever put on a pair of
shoes?"
Keough thought a little.
"Let's see — there's you and me. And there's Goodwin and
Blanchard and Geddie and old Lutz and Doc Gregg and that Italian
agent for the banana company, and there's old Delgado — no; he
wears sandals. And, oh, yes; there's Madame Ortiz, that keeps the
hotel — she had on a pair of red slippers the other night. And her