conscious, perhaps for the first time, of my very
limited power of self-dependence. I began
to commune with myself, and see how helpless
and wretched a thing I was, when society
was suddenly and completely taken from me.
I began to know myself, and I did not
appear to improve upon acquaintance. The
more I carried on this self-examination, the
more contemptible did I appear in my own
eyes. For years I had gone placidly on in
ignorance of my mental and moral weakness;
what if my physical condition had been
silently deteriorating? This idea led me
into the reflections before recorded, and,
partly from fear, partly from curiosity, and
partly for occupation, I resolved to get as
much information about myself as talent
could furnish and money purchase.

The first step that I took with the view of
knowing myself, was to ring at the door of
an eminent chiropodist. He was within, of
course, as it was his business to be. I was
conducted by a footman in a splendid livery,
up a noble staircase into a drawing-room
furnished with all, and a little more of, the glass
and satin that taste has ordained to be
necessary for the proper fitting up of such
an apartment. A luxurious easy-chair was
placed for me near the table in the centre of
the rooms, and I was mildly and deferentially
told that the professor would be with me in
a few minutes. In the meantime I was left
to contemplate his portraits as he appeared
while extracting the corns of three crowned
heads— or rather six crowned feet— of Europe,
and those of an Eastern monarch, who, from
his undoubted Arab origin, ought never to
have been troubled with shoes, much less
with corns. When these works of art
had had their proper destined effect upon my
mind, the professor a coarse, fat man
entered, arrayed in a crimson velvet dressing-gown,
with a smoking-cap to match. I rose
to greet him, but he bounded forward with
an air of what was meant to be charming
amiability and consideration for my bodily
sufferings, and begged that I would on no
account disturb myself.

"My dear sir," he began, "I have seen too
many cases of your kind not to know how
extremely grateful a little rest must be.
Allow me to take off your boots and
socks."

He placed a small black velvet cushion for
me to rest my feet upon, and in a few seconds
those supposed suffering members were
exposed to his view.

"Ah," he exclaimed, " the very thing I
expected; exactly the same as the young Duke
of Spindles, who was here the other day! Do
you know his grace?"

I replied that I did not.

"A very affable young nobleman," he
continued, pinching my toes with his fore-finger
and thumb, "extraordinarily so, when
consider what his grace must have suffered with
his feet before his grace came to me. I think,
sir, that I extracted from his grace's right
foot, alone, in a simple morning, no less than
five and forty corns of different degrees of
magnitude!"

I exhibited a polite degree of astonishment.

"Yes, sir," he resumed, "and I did more
than that. I cured his grace of one of the
most awful bunions that has ever come under
my notice during a long and active professional
career. 'Cure me of that bunion,' said
his grace, 'and you will earn my everlasting
gratitude. It embitters my youth, it darkens
the festive board, it gnaws me like a vulture,
it comes between me and the legitimate
pleasures of the ball-room, which I am so
well fitted by age, appearance, and position
to enjoy.' I put out my talent, sir, and
his grace went away another man. The
hundred guineas that his grace presented me
with were soon spent, but the diamond-ring
that he gave me I shall preserve and wear by
his grace's desire, to the last day of my
life.

He displayed a ring.

"His grace must have been peculiarly
afflicted," I observed.

"Not at all, sir; not at all. In fact,
between ourselves, corns and bunions are the
great curse of our aristocracy. Not one of
that illustrious body is free from them,
male or female. It is an infallible sign of
blood."

While this conversation, or rather broken
monology was going on, the manipulation of
my feet continued, and small pea-looking
lumps of some drab material were, from time
to time, placed upon a silver salver standing
on the table.

"You must be a person of extraordinary
fortitude," he resumed, "to have endured
what you must have endured, for so long a
period. Are you aware that I have
already extracted thirty-two corns from your
feet?"

I was not aware of the fact.

"This," he observed, taking one of the peas
from the salver, "is what causes the pain in
the foot. It is the seed, or needle of the
corn, which being pressed down by the boot,
enters that portion of the flesh which is not
benumbed or hardened, and produces that
sharp, pricking pain, popularly known as
'shooting.'"

The professor rose with a look of triumphant
satisfaction, and I replaced my socks and
boots.

"There," he exclaimed, as I stood up once
more, "you feel another man now, and will
walk down-stairs very differently from the
way in which you walked up them."

I certainly did walk away differently, for
I was thirty-two pounds lighter. Each corn
or pea was charged a sovereign, and thirty-two
pounds was the cost of my first lesson in
the difficult art of knowing myself.

The next place that I found myself in was