Towsley listened in increasing astonishment and—terror. Whether owing to a diet of mince pie exclusively or to the unusual daintiness of his surroundings, he had not rested as well as he was accustomed to do upon the steam hole of the Express office cellar. He had never seen anybody that looked just like Miss Lucy, with her high-crowned night cap, her long trailing wrapper, her gleaming glasses, and her air of stern determination, which the flare of her candle flame seemed to accentuate. This grim expression, had he known it, was due mainly to the fact that her fastidious gaze had become riveted upon his very black finger-nails, as they clutched the white spread, and her resolution to alter their aspect as soon as daylight dawned. But he did not know this, of course, and he watched her go away—glide, he fancied—till she melted into the dimness of the hall beyond, and finally slipped, slipped, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, in her cloth shoes, down the stairs and out of hearing.
Then he sat up. The room was very warm and comfortable and it made him drowsy. Yet he could not now afford this drowsiness. While that queer little old lady was safely out of the way he must act, and act quickly.
As noiselessly as a cat the child stole out of bed, and fumbled around for his clothes—his own clothes; the familiar rags and tatters which, at Jefferson’s command, he had removed outside the bathroom door, and from which he had never before been separated since they came into his possession, the “cast-offs” of a bigger companion.
Of course he did not find them. Jefferson had taken the best of care that he should not, and they had already been consumed among the coals of the great furnace which heated the house.
When he became convinced that he could not recover his own attire, Towsley accepted that which Miss Lucy had provided. He drew on the underwear with a gratified sense of its comfort and daintiness, but with the idea that he was only “borrowing.”
“Adopted me, did she? I know what that means. Peter-the-Cripple he got adopted, that time he was run over by a lady’s carriage. She adopted him, and he went to a big house and he died. No, siree! there isn’t anybody going to catch me that way! least of all a little wizzly old lady like her! No, siree! Of course, I’ll have to wear these things till I get down-town and can borrow some more of a kid, and then I’ll send ’em back. Say, if I’m a swell like she said I was, and my name’s Lionel Armacost, if you please, what’s the matter with my pressing the button and getting a little light on a dark subject?”
Towsley’s bright eyes had observed where the electric button was, when Jefferson had lighted the hall bedroom earlier in the night, and he now manipulated it for his own benefit. A soft radiance promptly filled the pretty room and showed him where each article lay. In a wonderfully brief time the waif had arrayed himself from head to foot, and coolly surveyed himself in the long mirror that stood upon its rollers in one corner.
“Pshaw! Ain’t I a guy! But—but—it’s sort of tasty, too. I wonder what the fellows’ll say! Wait till they see that feather and feel that velvet! Cracky! then you’ll hear them howl! I wonder what time it is? I wonder if I’m too late to get my papers? If I’m not, what a haul I’ll make in these duds! Maybe enough to buy a suit for myself down at Cheap John’s store. Then I’d have these wrapped in brown paper and sent back to Miss Armacost with my compliments. The compliments of Mister Towsley Lionel Towhead Armacost, esquire! Hi! ain’t that a notion! But plague take these shoes! They aren’t half as comfortable as my own old holeys! But it all goes! And she really is a dear little old lady. I’d like to oblige her if I could, but—adopted! No, siree!”
A country child of Towsley’s age would have been puzzled how to escape from the well-locked and bolted mansion; but the keen-witted gamin of the city’s streets had little difficulty. True, the great front door did open rather slowly to his puny grasp, but that was on account of the storm.
The wind swept and howled around the corner where the big house stood, and the white marble steps were heaped with snow. A great mass of the snow was dislodged by the movement of the door and fell in clouds over Towsley’s big hat and fine costume; also the tight shoes upon his feet seemed to make him stumble and stagger sadly; but he was not to be deterred by such trifles as these. The cold breath of the wind was delightful to him, the rush of outer air meant freedom.