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140 it; she knows where it is," Garth suggested.

"Did you know," Joan asked, "that your mother has a dreadfully bad headache and that I’m going to town with you?"

"I didn’t know it at all," he said. "Poor Mudder! Are we really, Joan? Just us, by ourselves?"

"We are," she said, "because your father can’t leave while it’s so foggy. Here are the good clothes, I think."

She produced the sailor-suit in question from a top drawer and cast it upon the bed. As Garth had said, there were long trousers, which were of blue serge. The white jumper had a dark blue collar, and an elaborate device was embroidered on the sleeve.

"That’s a real, sure-enough rating," explained Garth, his tones somewhat muffled on account of his diving into the jumper. "It came off a real sailor. Fogger got it, and Mudder sewed it on. It means gunner’s mate, second class. And the stripe around the top means that I belong to the starboard watch. There! Will you tie my necktie, please? Am I all right?"

He was so very much so, that when Joan had