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“And now, wife.” says Huggermugger, “bring me my boots.” He was a lazy giant, and his wife spoiled him, by waiting on him too much.

“Which boots, my dear,” says she.

“Why, the long ones,” says he; “I am going a hunting to-day, and shall have to cross the marshes.”

Little Jacket hoped the long boots were not those in one of which he was concealed, but unfortunately they were the very ones. So he felt a great hand clutch up the boots, and him with them, and put them down in another place. Huggermugger then took up one of the boots and drew it on, with a great grunt. He now proceeded to take up the other. Little Jacket’s first impulse was to run out and throw himself on the giant’s mercy, but he feared lest he should be taken for a rat. Besides he now thought of a way to defend himself, at least for a while. So he drew from his belt one of the long thorns he had cut from the bush by the seaside, and held it ready to thrust it into his adversary’s foot, if he could. But he forgot that though it was as a sword in his hand, it was but a thorn to a giant. Huggermugger had drawn the boot nearly on, and Little Jacket’s daylight was all gone, and the giant’s great toes were pressing down on him, when he gave them as fierce a thrust as he could with his thorn.

“Ugh!” roared out the giant, in a voice like fifty mad bulls; “wife, wife, I say!”

“What’s the matter, dear?” says wife.

“Here’s one of your confounded needles in my boot. I wish to gracious you’d be more careful how you leave them about!”

“A needle in your boot?” said the giantess, “how can that be? I haven’t been near your boots with my needles.”

“Well, you feel there yourself, careless woman, and you’ll see.”

Whereupon the giantess took the boot, and put her great hand down into the toe of it, when Little Jacket gave another thrust with his weapon.

“O-o-o-o!!” screams the wife. “There’s something here, for it ran into my finger; we must try to get it out. She then put her hand in again, but very cautiously, and Little Jacket gave it another stab, which made her cry out more loudly than before. Then Huggermugger put his hand in, and again he roared out as he felt the sharp prick of the thorn.

“It’s no use,” says he, flinging down the boot in a passion, almost breaking Little Jacket’s bones, as it fell. “Wife, take that boot to the cobbler, and tell him to take that sharp thing out, whatever it is, and send it back to me in an hour, for I must go a hunting today.”

So off the obedient wife trotted to the shoemaker’s, with the boot under her arm. Little Jacket was curious to see whether the shoemaker was a giant too. So when the boot was left in his workshop, he contrived to peep out a little, and saw, instead of another Huggermugger, only a crooked little dwarf, not more than two or three times bigger than himself. He went by the name of Kobboltozo.

“Tell your husband,” says he, “that I will look into his boot presently–I am busy just at this moment–and will bring it myself to his house.”

Little Jacket was quite relieved to feel that he was safe out of the giant’s house, and that the giantess had gone. “Now,” thought he, “I think I know what to do.”

After a while, Kobboltozo took up the bout and put his hand down into it slowly and cautiously. But Little Jacket resolved to keep quiet this time. The dwarf were felt around so carefully, for fear of having his finger pricked, and his hand was so small in comparison with that of the giant’s, that Little Jacket had time to dodge around his fingers and down into the toe of the boot, so that Kobboltozo could feel nothing there. He concluded, therefore, that whatever it was that hurt the giant and his wife, whether needle, or pin, or tack, or thorn, it must have dropped out on the way to his shop. So he laid the boot down, and went for his coat and hat. Little Jacket knew that now was his only chance of escape–he dreaded being carried back to Huggermugger–so he resolved to make a bold move. No sooner was the dwarf’s back turned, as he went to reach down his coat, than Little Jacket rushed out of the boot, made a spring from the table on which it lay, reached the floor, and made his way as fast as he could to a great pile of old boots and shoes that lay in a corner of the room, where he was soon hidden safe from any present chance of detection.