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Page 17
The next night the suit was finished, and laid by the bread-and-milk.
"We shall see," said the old lady, in a withering tone. There is not
much real prophetic wisdom in this truism, but it sounds very awful,
and the Tailor went to bed somewhat depressed.
Next morning the Brownies came down as usual.
"Don't they look splendid?" said Tommy, feeling the cloth. "When we've
tidied the place I shall put them on."
But long before the place was tidy, he could wait no longer, and
dressed up.
"Look at me!" he shouted; "bottle-green and brass buttons! Oh, Johnnie,
I wish you had some."
"It's a good thing there are two Brownies," said Johnnie, laughing,
"and one of them in rags still. I shall do the work this morning." And
he went flourishing round with a broom, while Tommy jumped madly about
in his new suit. "Hurrah!" he shouted, "I feel just like the Brownie.
What was it Granny said he sang when he got his clothes? Oh, I know--
'What have we here? Hemten hamten!
Here will I never more tread nor stampen.'"
And on he danced, regardless of the clouds of dust raised by Johnnie,
as he drove the broom indiscriminately over the floor, to the tune of
his own laughter.
It was laughter which roused the Tailor that morning, laughter coming
through the floor from the kitchen below. He scrambled on his things
and stole down-stairs.
"It's the Brownie," he thought; "I must look, if it's for the last
time."
At the door he paused and listened. The laughter was mixed with
singing, and he heard the words--
"What have we here? Hemten hamten!
Here will I never more tread nor stampen."
He pushed in, and this was the sight that met his eyes.
The kitchen in its primeval condition of chaos, the untidy particulars
of which were the less apparent, as everything was more or less
obscured by the clouds of dust, where Johnnie reigned triumphant, like
a witch with her broomstick; and, to crown all, Tommy capering and
singing in the Brownie's bottle-green suit, brass buttons and all.
"What's this?" shouted the astonished Tailor, when he could find breath
to speak.
"It's the Brownies," sang the boys; and on they danced, for they had
worked themselves up into a state of excitement from which it was not
easy to settle down.
"Where _is_ Brownie?" shouted the father.
"He's here," said Tommy; "we are the Brownies."
"Can't you stop that fooling?" cried the Tailor, angrily. "This is past
a joke. Where is the real Brownie, I say?"
"We are the only Brownies, really, Father," said Tommy, coming to a
full stop, and feeling strongly tempted to run down from laughing to
crying. "Ask the Old Owl. It's true, really."
The Tailor saw the boy was in earnest, and passed his hand over his
forehead.
"I suppose I'm getting old," he said; "I can't see daylight through
this. If you are the Brownie, who has been tidying the kitchen lately?"
"We have," said they.
"But who found my measure?"
"I did," said Johnnie.
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