“I think,” said Rusty, as he moved about uncomfortably under his wife’s gaze, “I think that since I’ve a little time to spare I’d better go and see Mr. Frog, the tailor. You know you’ve been telling me that my Sunday coat is beginning to look shiny—and I suppose I really ought to have a new one.”
Mrs. Rusty said that it was true—he did need a new coat. And she assured her husband that she would be delighted to have him go to the tailor’s.
Now, she did not know that Mr. Frog had moved. She thought his shop was on the banks of Broad Brook. But that was just another mistake of hers. And if she had known where his tailoring parlors were then located, she would certainly have raised a good many objections to Rusty’s visiting them on the day of his cousin’s party. For Mr. Frog’s shop was on the banks of Black Creek, where Long Bill Wren spent his summers.
XXII
THE FORGOTTEN GUEST
The shadows were lengthening—for the sun was far over in the west—when Rusty Wren reached Mr. Frog’s tailor’s shop overlooking Black Creek. Rusty pushed open the door and stepped inside, expecting to find Mr. Frog sitting cross-legged upon his table and sewing busily, according to the tailor’s custom, until sunset, which marked the close of Mr. Frog’s working day.
But Rusty had hardly entered the shop when he bumped into Mr. Frog with a crash; for Mr. Frog had been hurrying toward the door.
The collision bowled them both over upon the floor. But Mr. Frog did not appear annoyed in the least.