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effect and he consented to take off his beautiful suit and fold it
into its proper creases and put it away. It was almost as though
he gave it up again. But he was always thinking of wearing it
and of the supreme occasion when some day it might be worn without
the guards, without the tissue paper on the buttons, utterly and
delightfully, never caring, beautiful beyond measure.
One night when he was dreaming of it, after his habit, he
dreamed he took the tissue paper from one of the buttons and found
its brightness a little faded, and that distressed him mightily in
his dream. He polished the poor faded button and polished it, and
if anything it grew duller. He woke up and lay awake thinking of
the brightness a little dulled and wondering how he would feel if
perhaps when the great occasion (whatever it might be) should
arrive, one button should chance to be ever so little short of its
first glittering freshness, and for days and days that thought
remained with him, distressingly. And when next his mother let him
wear his suit, he was tempted and nearly gave way to the temptation
just to fumble off one little bit of tissue paper and see if indeed
the buttons were keeping as bright as ever.
He went trimly along on his way to church full of this wild
desire. For you must know his mother did, with repeated and
careful warnings, let him wear his suit at times, on Sundays, for
example, to and fro from church, when there was no threatening of
rain, no dust nor anything to injure it, with its buttons covered
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