“It’s that Blessed Brownie!” said the Tailor. “Has he been as usual?” he asked, when he was in the house.
“To be sure,” said the old lady; “all has been well, Son Thomas.”
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said the Tailor, after a pause. “I’m a needy man, but I hope I’m not ungrateful. I can never repay the Brownie for what he has done for me and mine; but the mistress up yonder has given me a bottle-green coat that will cut up as good as new; and as sure as there’s a Brownie in this house, I’ll make him a suit of it.”
“You’ll what?” shrieked the old lady. “Son Thomas, Son Thomas, you’re mad! Do what you please for the Brownies, but never make them clothes.”
“There’s nothing they want more,” said the Tailor, “by all accounts. They’re all in rags, as well they may be, doing so much work.”
“If you make clothes for this Brownie, he’ll go for good,” said the Grandmother, in a voice of awful warning.
“Well, I don’t know,” said her son. “The mistress up at the farm is clever enough, I can tell you; and as she said to me, fancy any one that likes a tidy room, not liking a tidy coat!” For the Tailor, like most men, was apt to think well of the wisdom of woman-kind in other houses.
“Well, well,” said the old lady, “go your own way. I’m an old woman, and my time is not long. It doesn’t matter much to me. But it was new clothes that drove the Brownie out before, and Trout’s luck went with him.”
“I know, Mother,” said the Tailor, “and I’ve been thinking of it all the way home; and I can tell you why it was. Depend upon it, the clothes didn’t fit. But I’ll tell you what I mean to do. I shall measure them by Tommy—they say the Brownies are about his size—and if ever I turned out a well-made coat and waistcoat, they shall be his.”
“Please yourself,” said the old lady, and she would say no more.