"But a hatter," protested Hood, "can get money out of his stock of new
hats. What could Todhunter get out of this one old
hat?"
Then a little man jumped out of the basket, took off his tall
hat, and bowed very gracefully to the crowd of Mangaboos around him.
Beside the couch was a wooden chair, and on the angle of the back hung a very seedy and disreputable hard-felt
hat, much the worse for wear, and cracked in several places.
So it dresses in black coats and trousers, and black
hats, and black boots, and, dear me, it is such a very respectable gentleman--to think it could ever have gone gadding about as a troubadour or a knight-errant, dressed in all those fancy colors!
It was not until the next Friday that Marilla heard the story of the flower-wreathed
hat. She came home from Mrs.
John Smauker, raising his
hat gracefully with one hand, while he gently waved the other in a condescending manner.
"I am shocked, uncle, to interrupt you again--but these horrid
hats of Arnold's are beginning to weigh upon my mind.
The laced coat, and the cocked
hat; where were they?
"Do all boats wiggle about in that way?" she asked, lingering as if to tie her
hat more firmly.
Among them, is a stout gentleman in a brown
hat, swinging himself to and fro in a rocking-chair on the pavement.
At the same moment the bird fluttered down upon the
hat and once more sat snugly on her eggs.
But the
hat was not a military
hat, the man was not in uniform and had not a martial bearing.