When the change was made, each found--or
said he found--the other's boots quite comfortable.
My father all the time felt as though he were a basket given to a dog.
The dog had got him, was proud of him, and no one must try to take him
away. The promptitude with which George took to him, the obvious
pleasure he had in "running" him, his quick judgement, verging as it
should towards rashness, his confidence that my father trusted him
without reserve, the conviction of perfect openness that was conveyed by
the way in which his eyes never budged from my father's when he spoke to
him, his genial, kindly, manner, perfect physical health, and the air he
had of being on the best possible terms with himself and every one
else--the combination of all this so overmastered my poor father (who
indeed had been sufficiently mastered before he had been five minutes in
George's company) that he resigned himself as gratefully to being a
basket, as George had cheerfully undertaken the task of carrying him.
In passing I may say that George could never get his own boots back
again, though he tried more than once to do so. My father always made
some excuse. They were the only memento of George that he brought home
with him; I wonder that he did not ask for a lock of his hair, but he did
not. He had the boots put against a wall in his bedroom, where he could
see them from his bed, and during his illness, while consciousness yet
remained with him, I saw his eyes continually turn towards them.
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