Then she noticed the rent of extraordinary dimensions in Bartie's coat, the same jagged place that had made even Peter Small exclaim.
'Dear, dear,' she said, 'this will never do. This really must not go a moment longer. Where is my thimble? Where can I have put my thimble? Give me that coat, Bartie, this minute, if you please.
Bartie took it off, but sat with jealous eye upon it all the time it was in her hands. He would have it mended his way.
'Now, look here,' he said, 'please don't go putting any fresh stuff in it. Just sew it over and over, so the places come together. I'll take to mending my own clothes. It's just the way you go letting new pieces in that spoils your mending, Miss Browne.'
'But, Bartie dear,' the gentle lady said, 'see, my love, when a place is torn right away like this, we have to put fresh stuff underneath. I'll just get a tiny bit from my work-basket.'
'You just won't,' said Bartie stubbornly. 'You give it to me, and I'll mend it myself'—and he actually took the needle and cotton and cobbled it over till there certainly was no hole left.
'Now, my love,' he said, and held it up triumphantly.
'But it will break away again to-morrow,' said Miss Browne, in deep distress. 'If you would just let me put a little patch, Bartie.'
But Bartie clung to his coat.
Roly had strayed out to look at his kangaroo-rats, but now came back.