Chapter IV.
A GREAT ENTERPRISE.
It was not a long walk from the hogshead home to the house which Mrs. Green proposed to turn into a place where meals and lodgings could be procured on a limited scale; but neither Ben nor Johnny lost any opportunity of stopping to gaze in at the lighted windows that served as mirrors, in order to make sure that their attire had not been disarranged in any way by their rapid walk. And when they stood in front of the door, it seemed to Paul as if they never would get ready to ring the bell, so much time did they spend in making sure that their fine toilets were quite in order, and the general effect satisfactory.
But they did ring the bell at last, and when Nelly came to the door there was no mistaking the fact that their appearance was striking in the highest degree; for the girl stood regarding them with so much astonishment that it was some time before she could invite them to walk in.
As Ben told Dickey Spry, when they got home that night, it “jest took the eyes outer Mother Green an’ Nelly to see them lookin’ as soft as silk an’ fine as fiddlers.”
After the embarrassment caused by their costumes had passed away in a degree, although Nelly did not seem to recover from her surprise during the entire evening, Mrs. Green proceeded to the business on hand by showing the boys two rooms, furnished with no pretensions to elegance, but as neat as they were bare, which she told them she would let to four boys at the moderate price of two dollars and a half each per week, including meals and washing.
To Paul the difference was so great between the place and the one they were then occupying, that he was anxious to go there at once, and the others were quite as eager as he was. Ben was sure that he could induce Dickey to make the fourth in that perfection of boarding-houses, as he knew it would prove to be; and in case he should not succeed in convincing Master Spry that it would be better for him to live there rather than in his hogshead, he promised to use all his eloquence on Mopsey Dowd, or some other equally eligible party.
Thus it was decided that the boys should change their home on the following day, and all hands were remarkably well pleased; Mrs. Green because four boarders would bring in a weekly amount of ten dollars, and the boys because at last they were to live like other people.
It would not be a difficult matter to move, for two coats, rather the worse for wear, and three old tomato cans were all the property they had to bring; Paul’s tops, which constituted his baggage, could be carried in the pocket of his jacket without any trouble.
When they got back to the hogshead that night, and told Dickey of the important change they were about to make, he read them a very severe lesson on the sinfulness of extravagance. It was perhaps a trifle more pointed than it would have been if he had not just been made bankrupt by the perfidy of a friend. But it was both time and labor thrown away to try to induce him to become a fourth boarder at Mrs. Green’s. He positively refused to listen to the scheme, after it had been described to him, and the conversation ended by his buying back his old home at the original price, agreeing to pay ten cents each week as soon as he should be once more firmly established in business.