“Oh, I reckon you’ll find ’em in one o’ the drawers or pigeonholes,” said Maria, coming forward and taking another comprehensive squint at the suit as she did so, the squire meanwhile pulling out and inspecting various drawers with considerable show of irritation.
“What’s that?” Maria inquired, after a moment, and pointing into a drawer where some dark, frayed edges were protruding from beneath a couple of letters.
“Humph!” grunted the squire, as he drew forth the missing samples, and Maria smiled complacently.
Then, adjusting his glasses the man compared the numbers on the tags with those in the copy of the letter which he had written to the tailor, and in which he had given the order for the two suits of clothes. His face was a study as he began to realize that Abel Black was in no way responsible for the “blunder,” for there, in black and white, sure enough, his “instructions were explicit.”
“Thunder and lightning! I don’t understand it. I never did such a thing before in my life!” he muttered, with a very red face, as he was forced to admit to himself that he had blundered in writing the numbers.
“Your new suit’s come, hain’t it, squire? Is there anything wrong about it?” calmly inquired Maria, with the most innocent air imaginable.
“Wrong!” shouted the infuriated man, “I should say there was. I got these numbers misplaced someway in giving my order, and that dunce of a tailor, instead of coming to find out whether I made a mistake or not, has made up for me the cloth I meant Cliff should have, and vice versa.”
“Good land! you don’t say so!” exclaimed Mrs. Kimberly, with every appearance of being greatly astonished. “Sure enough, this is the cloth”—bending to examine it and to hide the convulsive twitching of her mouth—“that I said you could shoot peas through.”
“Just so,” said the squire, bestowing a withering look upon the offensive garments.
“And Cliff’s suit was made off the other goods?” inquired Maria, trying hard not to betray eager interest she experienced in the matter.