“Why, what’s the matter?” exclaimed Henry Burns, with surprise. “He isn’t hurt, is he? I saw him a few hours ago, and he seemed all right.”
“No, he isn’t hurt,—at least, not the way you mean, Henry. The fact is, he was dancing out on the piazza about half an hour ago with pretty little Miss Wilson,—you know, the one in the cottage down on the shore,—and the last I saw of Bob he was escorting her home. I’m afraid we shall have to give him up for to-night.”
“That’s too bad,” said Henry Burns, solemnly, as though some grievous misfortune had come upon Tom’s chum. “And the worst of it is, it may last all summer. Well, Bob will miss a very pleasant surprise-party to Colonel Witham, to say nothing of the spread. That, by the way, is stowed away in those baskets over behind the bed and the wash-stand,—but, first, we’ve got to clear the coast of Colonel Witham.”
“We’re yours to command, Henry,” replied George Warren. “Tell us what to do.”
“Well, in the first place,” said Henry Burns, opening one of his windows that led out on to the veranda, as he spoke, “the rest of you just listen as hard as ever you can at my door, while George and I make a brief visit to the colonel’s room. If you hear footsteps, just pound on the wall, so we can get back in time. It’s pretty certain he won’t be here, though, until we are ready for him. He hasn’t missed a night in weeks in getting to bed exactly at a quarter past ten o’clock. He’s as regular as a steamboat; always on time. And he’s a good deal like a steamboat, too, for he snores like a fog-horn all night long.”
Henry Burns and George Warren disappeared through the window and were gone but a moment, when they reappeared, each bearing in one hand a lamp from the colonel’s room.
“The colonel is always talking about economy,” explained Henry Burns, “so I am not going to let him burn any oil to-night, if I can help it. My lamps happen to need filling,—I’ve borrowed an extra one for this occasion, and so, you see, I don’t intend to waste any of the colonel’s oil by throwing it away. I’ll see that not a drop of the colonel’s oil is wasted.”
Henry Burns carefully proceeded to pour the oil from each lamp which he and George Warren had brought from the colonel’s room into those in his own room.
“There,” he said, “there’s enough oil in each of those wicks to burn for several minutes, so the colonel will have a little light to start in on. But we don’t want to return his lamps empty, and so I’ll just fill them up again. I’m sure the colonel would approve of this economy.”
And Henry Burns carefully refilled the colonel’s lamps from his water-pitcher.