seltoes took to the new service in
a wonderful way. Some said it was because Spare gave him nothing to do
but play at bowls all day on the palace green. Yet one thing vexed the
heart of Tinseltoes, and that was his master's leathern doublet. But for
it, he was sure people would never remember that Spare had been a
cobbler; and the page took a deal of pains to let him see how much out
of the fashion it was at the Court. But Spare answered Tinseltoes as he
had done the King; and at last, finding nothing better would do, the
page got up one fine morning earlier than his master, and tossed the
leathern doublet out of the back window into a lane, where Spy found it
and brought it to his mother.

"That nasty thing!" said the old woman. "Where is the good in it?"

By this time, Pounce had taken everything of value from Scrub and
Fairfeather--the looking-glass, the silver-rimmed horn, the husband's
scarlet coat, the wife's gay cloak, and, above all, the golden leaves,
which so gladdened the hearts of old Buttertongue and her sons, that
they threw the leathern doublet over the sleeping cobbler for a joke,
and went off to their hut in the middle of the forest.

The sun was going down when Scrub and Fairfeather awoke from dreaming
that they had been made a lord and a lady, and sat clothed in silk and
velvet, feasting with the King in his palace hall. They were greatly
disappointed to find their golden leaves and all their best things gone.
Scrub tore his hair, and vowed to take the old woman's life, while
Fairfeather uttered loud cries of sorrow. But Scrub, feeling cold for
want of his coat, put on the leathern doublet without asking or caring
whence it came.

Hardly was it buttoned on when a change came over him. He began to talk
so merrily, that, instead of crying, Fairfeather made the wood ring with
laughter. Both busied themselves in getting up a hut of branches, in
which Scrub kindled a fire with a flint and steel, which, together with
his pipe, he had brought unknown to Fairfeather, who had told him the
like was never heard of at the Court. Then they found a pheasant's nest
at the root of an old oak, made a meal of roasted eggs, and went to
sleep on a heap of long green grass which they had gathered, with
nightingales singing all night long in the old trees about them.

So it happened that Scrub and Fairfeather stayed day after day in the
forest, making their hut larger and more cosy against the winter,
living on wild b