While his Frog-End mates were driving thither-ward in the tip-cart, and talking about him, Master Oily Burdeen, the third hero in our story (counting the twins as one), was standing before a bureau in Mrs. Murcher's best corner room, and smiling graciously at his image in the oval-shaped looking-glass.
He held a hair-brush in his right hand and a comb in his left, and after giving his sleek locks an artistic touch or two, he would tip the mirror a trifle and recede a step, to get a still more pleasing view of his personal perfections.
It was not his own room, there in the new part—the swollen cheek, as it were—of the summer boarding-house. Nor can I have the satisfaction of declaring that it was his own brush and comb with which he was making so free, nor his own cologne that had imparted to his naturally rough, rusty hair its extraordinary fragrance and smoothness. But the broadly smiling mouth, snub nose, and freckles were possessions nobody would have thought of disputing with Master Olly; and the tolerably well-fitting, genteel, grayish-brown suit he had on had belonged to him about eight hours.
Olly Burdeen was not, in fact, one of Mrs. Murcher's boarders. He was only a boy-of-all-work employed by her for the season. The room belonged to Mr. Hatville, who had gone yachting that afternoon; and Olly had taken temporary possession to admire himself in his new clothes before the convenient glass.
For new they were to him, although they had been rather well worn that summer by the friendly young boarder, who, on departing in the morning, had made Oily a present of them in return for the errands Oily had done for him.
This was the first opportunity to try them on that the proud recipient had found. He had never in his life worn anything so stylish, and we can smile tolerantly at the innocent vanity with which he surveyed himself in Mr. Hatville's mirror. His liberal use of Mr. Hatville's hair-brush and cologne-bottle was not, perhaps, so excusable. And when with fearful joy he took from its embroidered case by the mirror the tempting gold watch which Mr. Hatville had, either by accident or design, left hanging there, on changing his clothes that afternoon to go yachting,—when, I say, Master Burdeen lifted out that valuable time-piece by its dangling chain, and placed it in the watch-pocket of his new waistcoat, it must be owned that he was carrying his ideas of hospitality too far.
"It only needed a watch to set it off," he said; "and here it is!"
In his button-hole he hooked the gold guard, letting the heavy seal hang, and the chain fall in a graceful curve on his vest. Then he drew out the watch and opened it with a pressure of the spring (it was a hunter's case), and looked at the time; shutting it again with a delightful snap, and replacing it in his pocket, as he strutted the while with amiable satisfaction before the tilted glass.
"I'll have just such a watch of my own some day," he said to himself, proudly, "and just such a gold chain, with a seal as big as that! See if I don't!"