"Oh, come, major—you couldn't have been a mouse," interrupted the sprite. "You've just told us all about what you've been in the past, and you couldn't have been all that and a mouse too."
"So I have," said the major, with a smile. "I'd forgotten that, and you are right, too. I couldn't have been a mouse. I should have put what I was going to say differently. If I had ever been a mouse—that's the way it should be—if I had ever been a mouse and had been foolish enough to stick my head into a mouse-trap after a piece of cheese without knowing that I should get it out again, I should not have been here to-day, in all likelihood. Therefore the general is right. Try on the invisible coat, Jimmieboy, and let's see how it works before you risk calling on Fortyforefoot."
"Here it is," said the sprite, holding out his hands with apparently nothing in them.
Jimmieboy laughed a little, it seemed so odd to have a person say "here it is" and yet not be able to see the object referred to. He reached out his hand, however, to take the coat, relying upon the sprite's statement that it was there, and was very much surprised to find that his hand did actually touch something that felt like a coat, and in fact was a coat, though entirely invisible.
"Shall I help you on with it?" asked the major.
"Perhaps you'd better," said Jimmieboy. "It feels a little small for me."
"That's what I was afraid of," said the sprite. "You see it covers me all over from head to foot—that is the coat covers all but my head and the hood covers that—but you are very much taller than I am."
Here Jimmieboy, having at last got into the coat and buttoned it about him, had the strange sensation of seeing all of himself disappear excepting his head and legs. These remaining uncovered were of course still in sight.
"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed the major, merrily, as Jimmieboy walked around. "That is the most ridiculous thing I ever saw. You're nothing but a head and pair of legs."
Jimmieboy smiled and placed the hood over his head and the major roared louder than ever.