"Yes'm," said he.
"Well, you won't get it, so trot along home."
In the shop Mr. Toby showed him the churchwarden pipes in the show-case. Freddie wondered how it would taste to smoke some of that magic tobacco in the Chinaman's head in a churchwarden pipe.
As he passed the church on his way home, he looked for the fat old man who usually sat in his chair tilted back against the wall, but he was not there. Freddie wished to ask him about those noises up in the tower when Mr. Punch and his father were having their high jinks; he had never been able to screw up his courage to the point of asking about this, but now that he was grown up he thought he might be able.
He gave the letter to his mother, and she read it; but she said nothing to him about it. When his father came home in the evening, she showed the letter to him, and they talked about it, and Freddie could not understand very well what they were saying. Finally his father said:
"Well, I don't think there would be any harm in it."
"I suppose not," said his mother. "I'll see them in the morning. He had better wear his Sunday suit and his new shoes."
This was bad, because it sounded like Sunday-school, and the shoes squeaked. Freddie thought he had better change the subject, so he said:
"I'm grown up. I can say Freddie. Mr. Toby says so."
His father laughed, but his mother took him up in her arms and hugged him close to her breast.