"bldtn10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hope Laura Lee)

"Are you all right?" asked the Bold Tin Soldier after he had climbed
down the ladder and hurried over to where the Clown was getting up
off the sofa cushion.

"Yes, thank you! I am all right," was the answer. "I should not have
tried to swing by that string so near the burning gas. But I did not
think. Now, oh dear! Look at my trousers!"

Well might the clown say that, for his fine yellow and red trousers
were scorched and burned. It was lucky the Clown himself was not
burned, but it was too bad his suit was spoiled.

"Oh dear me! no one will ever buy me now," said the Clown sadly,
looking at his legs. "I am damaged! I'll be thrown into the waste-
paper basket!"

"Perhaps I could make you a new suit," said the Rag Doll. "I can sew
a little, and if I had some cloth I might at least put a patch over
the burned places if I shouldn't have time for a whole suit."

"Thank you," answered the Clown. "But I would never look the same.
And thank you, Captain, for cutting me down before I was burned," he
went on to the Bold Tin Soldier. "It was very brave of you."

"Oh, it was nothing," the Captain modestly said. "We soldiers are
here to do just such things as that."

"Hush!" suddenly called the Monkey on a Stick. "Here come the
clerks. The store is going to open!"

And so all the toys had to be quiet and go back to their places.
They could not make believe be alive until night should come again.

One by one the girl clerks took their places behind the toy counters
near the shelves on which the different playthings were stored. One
girl picked up the Calico Clown.

"Well, I do declare!" exclaimed this girl. "Look at my fancy Clown,
will you, Mabel?"

"What's the matter with him, Sallie?" asked the clerk whose name was
Mabel.

"Why, his red and yellow pants are scorched," answered Sallie. "I
wonder what happened to him. Some customer who was smoking must have
dropped a match or some hot cigar ashes on him. I must tell the
manager about this. I can't sell a damaged toy like that."

"No, you can't," agreed Mabel, after she had looked at the poor