Mary Frances feared to make a noise—but she quietly pushed the door open a little wider and saw Silver Thimble on one side of the table, and over on the opposite side, the queerest little fellow.
“Looks like the picture of a porcupine,” thought Mary Frances.
“It may be good practice for a soldier,” groaned the queer little figure, “but pity the target! Besides,—one at a time, please!”
“Emery Bag, what do you think you were made for? I hope you realize it’s your duty to clean all the rust and roughness off these needles as I run them through you, so that the little Miss may sew more easily,” lectured Thimble. “No in-sub-or-din-a-tion! Stop and think! You know my family’s power,—you know my family’s wealth. You realize, I hope, you live in a land named for my aris-to-crat-ic ancestors—Thimble Land!”
“Oh, ancestors go-to-China!” exclaimed Emery Bag. “We live in the present, and I demand—I demand justice. I leave it to anybody if it’s fair to have twenty needles stuck into your heart at once!”
“Take ’em out, I say!”
“The idea of being such a coward!” retorted Thimble. “Where’s your heart of steel you brag of so often?”
