“Well, I wouldn’t want that to happen,” said the catcher. “And that reminds me. There’s a rip in my glove, and I’ve got to sew it.”
“Can you sew?”
“Oh, a bit,” answered Andy. “I’m strictly an amateur though, mind you. I don’t do it for pay, so if you’ve got any buttons that need welding to your trousers don’t ask me to do it.”
“Never!” exclaimed Dunk. “I’ve found a better way than that.”
“What is it—the bachelor’s friend—or every man his own tailor? Fasten a button on with a pair of gas-pliers so that you have to take the trousers apart when you want to get it off?”
“Something like that, yes,” laughed Dunk, “only simpler. Look here!”
He pulled up the back of his vest and showed Andy where a suspender button was missing. In its place Dunk had taken a horseshoe nail, pushed it through a fold of the trousers, and had caught the loop of the braces over the nail.
“Isn’t that some classy little contrivance?” he asked, proudly. “Not that I take any credit to myself, though. Far be it! I got the idea out of the comic supplement. But it works all right, and the beauty of it is that you can use the nail over and over again. It is practically indestructible.
“So you see if you are wearing the nail all day, to lectures and so on, and if you have to put on your glad rags at night to go see a girl, or anything like that, and find a button missing, you simply remove the nail from your day-pants and attach it to your night ones. Same suspenders—same nail. It beats the bachelor’s friend all to pieces.”
“I should imagine so,” laughed Andy. “I’ll have to lay in a stock of those nails myself. The way tailors sew buttons on trousers nowadays is a scandal. They don’t last a week.”