“Matter? Look at this fellow’s clothes and boots!”
“Oh, Vince, my dear, how you have torn your trousers again!”
“Torn them again!—the boy’s a regular scarecrow!” cried the Doctor. “I will not pay for good things for him to go cliff-climbing and wading and burrowing in caves.—Here: what are you going to do?”
“Take him indoors to sew up that slit.”
“No!” cried the Doctor, filling up the bottle; and then, making a small cork squeak as he screwed it in, “Take your scissors and cut the legs off four inches above the knees.”
“Robert!” cried Mrs Burnet, in a tone of protest.
“And look here, Vince: you can give up wearing shoes and stockings; they are for civilised beings, not for young savages.”
“My dear Robert, you are not in earnest?”
“Ah, but I am. Let him chip and tear his skin: that will grow up again: clothes will not.”
“All right, father; I shan’t mind,” said the boy, smiling. “Save taking shoes and stockings off for wading.”