“Why not, father?”
“Why not, sir! Look at your trousers and your boots.”
Vincent Burnet looked down, and then up in his father’s face.
“Trousers a bit tight across the knee,” he said deprecatingly. “The cloth gave way.”
“And were your boots too tight at the toes, sir? Look at them.”
“They always wear out there,” said Vincent; and he once more looked down, beyond the great tear across the right knee of his trousers, to his boots, whose toes seemed each to have developed a wide mouth, within which appeared something which looked like a great grey tongue.
“I don’t think this pair were very good leather, father,” he said apologetically.
“Good leather, sir! You’d wear them out it they were cast iron.—Ah, my dear!”
A pleasant, soft face appeared at the door, and looked anxiously from father to son.
“Is anything the matter, Robert?”