“Ben,” said his uncle, “you seem to be a good marksman, though you have not boasted of yourself. I’ll give you a bow and arrow, and, perhaps, if you practise, you may make yourself an archer before the first of September; and, in the meantime, you will not wish the fortnight to be over, for you will have something to do.”
“Oh, sir,” interrupted Hal, “but if you mean that Ben should put in for the prize, he must have a uniform.”
“Why must he?” said Mr. Gresham.
“Why, sir, because everybody has—I mean everybody that’s anybody; and Lady Diana was talking about the uniform all dinner time, and it’s settled, all about it, except the buttons: the young Sweepstakes are to get theirs made first for patterns—they are to be white, faced with green, and they’ll look very handsome, I’m sure; and I shall write to mamma to-night, as Lady Diana bid me, about mine; and I shall tell her to be sure to answer my letter, without fail, by return of post; and then, if mamma makes no objection, which I know she won’t, because she never thinks much about expense, and all that—then I shall bespeak my uniform, and get it made by the same tailor that makes for Lady Diana and the young Sweepstakes.”
“Mercy upon us!” said Mr. Gresham, who was almost stunned by the rapid vociferation with which this long speech about a uniform was pronounced. “I don’t pretend to understand these things,” added he, with an air of simplicity; “but we will inquire, Ben, into the necessity of the case; and if it is necessary—or, if you think it necessary, that you shall have a uniform—why, I’ll give you one.”
“You, uncle? Will you, indeed?” exclaimed Hal, with amazement painted in his countenance. “Well, that’s the last thing in the world I should have expected! You are not at all the sort of person I should have thought would care about a uniform; and now I should have supposed you’d have thought it extravagant to have a coat on purpose only for one day; and I’m sure Lady Diana Sweepstakes thought as I do; for when I told her of that motto over your kitchen chimney, ‘WASTE NOT, WANT NOT,’ she laughed, and said that I had better not talk to you about uniforms, and that my mother was the proper person to write to about my uniform: but I’ll tell Lady Diana, uncle, how good you are, and how much she was mistaken.”
“Take care how you do that,” said Mr. Gresham: “for perhaps the lady was not mistaken.”
“Nay, did not you say, just now, you would give poor Ben a uniform?”
“I said I would, if he thought it necessary to have one.”
“Oh, I’ll answer for it, he’ll think it necessary,” said Hal, laughing, “because it is necessary.”