addle Shoes

aron Von Lodge was the head of a small country known as Lilliland near Switzerland. The time was the early 1900s.

One evening during dinner with his fiancée, Lady Angela of Alpine Castle, and his chief advisor, Professor Hamblin, the Baron was reflecting on how well things were going in Lilliland.

Lady Angela thought to herself that this might be the proper time to ask the Baron and the Professor for advice. It seemed that Lady Angela’s friend who owned a small shoe shop in Lilliland received his order of shoes from a shoe company in Boston. The order was for 1000 pairs of shoes in different sizes and colors for both men and women. All the shoes were to be either black or saddle brown. But the shoes that arrived were 1000 pairs of saddle shoes, brown and white. No one in Lilliland had ever seen a pair of saddle shoes before.

Lady Angela continued to say that when the store owner wanted to return the order to Boston, he discovered that the shoe company was out of business and closed. The Lilliland shoe store owner was stuck with 1000 pairs of brown and white saddle shoes.

What help could they offer the shoe store owner? Lady Angela asked. Both the Baron and the Professor did not know what to say. There was really nothing they could do, the Baron later said.

The Baron offered to buy several pairs of the saddle shoes to wear around the castle and that Lady Angela and the Professor would do the same. Hopefully this would give them some ideas as to what to do.

A few days later the Baron and the Professor talked and came up with a plan. There would be a public sale of the shoes at the same price that the shoe store owner paid the Boston manufacturer for the brown and white saddle shoes. The store owner had paid $5 a pair and was going to sell them for $10 a pair. The Baron’s public sale would be at $5 a pair, which would be a good value for the citizens and the shoe store owner would get his original investment back.

The Baron and Lady Angela wore their saddle shoes out in public and inspired everyone in Lilliland to buy a pair of saddle shoes which became very popular during the summer months. Lady Angela was very happy with the outcome to the problem.