“Can't I help you, Doctor Burns?” she called anxiously.
“Not a bit of it, Cynthia: much obliged. I'm having the time of my life. Stand still, son; let's try it this way round!” came back to the housekeeper's ears.
“I ain't never wore so many things before,” Bob declared doubtfully, as a small white waist with, dangling elastic stocking-supporters was finally discovered to go best buttoned in the back.
“I know. But you'll see how fine it is to have your stockings held up for you. Hi! Here are some sandals, Bob! Barefoot sandals, only we'll wear them over stockings to-day, since we're going shopping. Now for these blue garments I wonder how they go. Shapeless-looking things, they look to me. I suppose they'll resolve into baggy knickers and the sort of long shirt with a belt to it the youngsters of your age all wear. Here we go. Does this top part button behind, Bob, like the waist? No, I think not.... It sure looks odd, whichever way we don it, but that may be because it's pretty big. Harold's several sizes bigger than you, though he can't be much older. Give me six months and I'll have you filling out any other five-year-olds clothes.”
“My hands—they're all gone,” remarked the child, holding out his arms. The blue sleeves did, indeed, cover them to the finger-tips. Laughing, Burns rolled the cloth back, making an awkward bunch at the wrist, but allowing the small hands freedom.
“When Mrs. Lessing trains her eye on you she'll want to make time getting to the shops,” Burns observed, struggling with the scarlet scarf and finally tying it like a four-in-hand. “But you're clean, Bob, and hungry, I hope. Now I want a great big hug to pay me for dressing you.”
He held out his arms, and his new charge sprang into them, pressing arms like sticks around the strong neck of the man who seemed to him already the best friend he had in the world—as he was.
At eleven o'clock, a round of calls made, the Green Imp came for Bob and Mrs. Lessing. They met him, hand in hand, the little figure in its voluminous misfit clothes looking quaint, enough beside the perfect outlines of his companion's attire. But both faces were very happy.
“How many dollars do you suppose Ellen has, stowed away in that handsome purse of hers, ready to spend on the child?” Martha Macauley queried of Winifred Chester as they watched the Green Imp out of sight from the Macauley porch.
Mrs. Chester shook her head. “I've no idea. She'll want to get him everything a child could have. But Red won't let her.”