“No, thank you. I want my Tin Captain,” he answered. “I left him here.”
“Oh, you mean your Soldier,” said the cook. “I haven’t seen him. I don’t believe you left him here.”
“Oh, yes I did!” declared Arnold.
But the Bold Tin Soldier was not in sight, of course, being down in the barrel of sugar, as we know. And though Arnold and the cook looked for him they could not find him.
“Oh dear!” sighed Arnold, when he could not find the commander of his tin army, “where is he?”
“You must have taken him out into the yard and forgotten about it,” said the cook.
“No I didn’t,” said the little boy.
“Then it is among your other playthings,” the cook went on. “You had better look.”
So Arnold looked, and his mother and Mirabell and Dick helped him, but the Bold Tin Soldier could not be found. He was not with the others in their box, and, look as he did, Arnold could not find his toy anywhere.
“I’ll never get another like him,” sighed the little boy. “He was so nice, with his shiny medal-button!”