He was not much reassured by Humphrey's answer:
"It'll do very well there; and, besides, it's better to have it near, in case you get sleepy again."
The toilette now began in earnest: Humphrey gave Miles his stockings to put on while he proceeded to dress himself, and was all ready but his jacket, when turning round he found Miles in great perplexity, with his toe unaccountably fixed in the place where his heel ought to be.
"I can't get it out, Humphie!"
"I must do it, I suppose," said the elder boy; and he seized the leg, nearly upsetting Miles as he did so, and proceeded to put on the stocking wrong side out.
"It doesn't matter the least," he assured Miles, who was rather discomfited at the bits of thread, and general unfinished appearance of his leg. But what did matter was, that the walking-boots had not, of course, come up from being cleaned.
"Never mind," said Humphrey; "shoes will do."
On came the delicate child's thin in-door shoes, without any reference to the heavy dew and long grass attendant upon mushroom hunting. Miles was then divested of his night-gown, and his under-clothes put on.
All went on smoothly till the first tying of strings, and here Humphrey was completely at fault. It was no use.
"Don't you think you could hold all your things together?" he suggested; "and then I'll pop on your blouse quick, and make the band very tight, to keep it all steady?"